20 Miles (Take Two)

Hip held up and let me run long. Woot! I got out sort of early Saturday morning (~7AM) and ran 2x loops ~10 miles each with my car at one end and a 7/11 at the other. Setting it up so I had access to ice every ~5 miles was key (miles 5/15 at the 7/11 were all about stuffing my bra full of ice!). It was also good to know that I had a reasonable bail out point in case my hip didn't wasn't cooperating. I started out super easy/slow and cautious b/c I wasn't confident in my hip at all. I was hoping I'd be able to get 20 miles in but promised myself that I would only do it if I felt like I wasn't hurting myself.

I guess overall it went better than last week. My body didn't seize up cramping afterward and my brain did a better job managing the distance. It was slower than last time, but the route I chose today was hillier so maybe the avg pace is neither here nor there. I negative split it by ~5min, but given how slow I started that wasn't hard to do! For whatever reason, I felt like my limiter today was heart rate vs muscular/legs. After all the aerobic training I do it seems downright silly that my heart rate would be out of control... Ok it wasn't really out of control but it was higher than it's been which just meant I had to run slower than normal to keep it <150. While I was running I had the thought that I feel like my body doesn't regulate itself in heat very well, which again seems silly because I should be used to it, but I do wonder if maybe after ~11 years of training so much in it if my body has actually gotten worse at dealing with it? I don't even know if that's even a thing, but when the sun was beating down on me ~14 miles in this morning I was wishing for air conditioning, and wondering what it might be like to run in 60 degrees??

Anyway, the bigger story might be how I managed to make my hip happy enough to allow me to run so long today... Couple of things:

~My hip thing isn't really an 'injury'. Nothing is truly injured- it's just muscles that are tight and pissed off and not functioning correctly, which causes pain. I probably could turn this into a legit injury if I were to not actively go about fixing it and yet run hard on it when it hurts, but I think shutting down that run last weekend when I started to feel real pain (and then not running for several days while actively trying to fix it) was key into it not escalating into anything bigger.

~I went to chiro to get my pelvis straightened out. If I'm out of skeletal alignment then muscles will absolutely have to work in weird ways. I have an appointment every week now so won't be skipping that for a while!

~I didn't just focus on the muscle that was hurting- I went after all the muscles in the surrounding area and worked them all out. I have found that spending 5min 3x day rolling is better than doing one long major rolling session. But I didn't just work on TFL and glute medius... I worked out lots of tight spots all through my glutes (there were many!) and upper quad as well. I think upper quad played a bigger part in that TFL pain than I originally gave it credit for b/c getting that area loose reduced a bunch of pain straight away.

~I loaded the ice and ibuprofen for ~2 days. Again, I've read the evidence against using those modalities, but when what makes sense in theory doesn't match up with what works in practice, you have to wonder. In practice, ice and ibuprofen take the pain away which allows me to run without limping. I haven't taken ibuprofen since I ran today but I have put an ice pack on it a few times already and that def makes it feel better so... I'm going with what I'm finding works.

~I did a few short sessions focusing on hip strength and mobility this week (not just rolling/massage). Exercises I like are hip hikes, standing stork hold, crossover lunges, step-ups, and pistol squats. I'm sure there are others that are good but when I do all those, my hips feel solid and strong and functional. Couch stretch and lunge pose are my 2 favorite hip opener/mobility stretches.

Anyway, so that's my hip management routine. It's working! I'm not sure if I'll attempt another 20 miler before Vineman? Maybe? I still have time I think... I could do one again next weekend b/c that's still 3 weeks out. We'll see. If not I suspect I'll do a 20 mile day but split up into 2x runs vs one long one. Physically I think those double run days are quite good. But I think the straight 20 miler is better brain training.

Today (Sunday) Moana started triathlon 'training' wth the kids group at HTC. I wasn't sure she was ready but she wanted to do it and Ben said sure let's try so I took her and her bike/helmet/cap/goggles/run shoes and let her join the group. She had a blast! I had ~2 hours on my own in the Computrainer Studio while the kiddos were out doing their thing. Can you tell what workout I did?

Main set 3x 15min as 3x(4/1) at 185/215w. My legs felt pretty fatigued when I woke up this morning so I wasn't sure I'd have any power to actually ride but once I was on the bike I felt quite strong so this wasn't crazy hard. Pretty stoked about that! Also stoked that my hip feels almost completely fine? I expected it to hurt at least a little this morning but it really doesn't. Phew!