On Thursday I did this……..

for this many miles
⇩

in the blazing California

and I used this

6-8 times

After I finished the walk, I did this……..

AND THEN THIS
⇩

Intense exercise actually causes microtrauma, or tiny tears in muscle fibers. This muscle damage not only stimulates muscle cell activity and helps repair the damage and strengthen the muscles ( muscle hypertrophy), but it is also linked with delayed onset muscle pain and soreness (DOMS) , which occurs between 24 and 72 hours after exercise.

By taking an ice bath after a long walk or run, it’s believed that you slow down this metabolic process, which in turn, reduces swelling and tissue breakdown. It helps release lactic acid and soothes aching muscles.

Then, with rewarming, the increased blood flow speeds circulation, and in turn, improves the healing process. Although there is no current protocol regarding the ideal time and temperature for cold immersion routines, most athletes or trainers who use them recommend a water temperature between 12 to 15 degrees Celsius and immersion times of 5 to 10 and sometimes up to 20 minutes.

Ice baths are not for the feint hearted. It helps to be a gluten for punishment like I am. If you do try this, make sure you ease in to the water gradually. After the initial shock it actually feels good!

OK…so last Wednesday I walked from the foot of the Oakland Bay Bridge , along the embarcadero all the way over the Golden Gate to the bridge to the vista point, and then back to the Bay bridge, for a total of 16.3 miles. The weather was picture perfect and my breathing was good. Maybe a little too good.

Why do I say that? Because I was breathing so well during the walk that I went crazy and started going way too fast. The following day , my legs ,calves and shins were so sore I could barely walk, and for the first time ever, my biceps were actually cramping up on me. That’s right..my arm muscles were cramping up! My right calf muscle is still so sore that I’m going to have to skip this Sundays 10 miler.

My lungs didn’t fare too well either. Though I was breathing great during the walk, it finally caught up with me the next morning. Not as severe as the last walk, but still bad enough to make me miserable for a few days.

I think these are some of the mistakes I made.

1) I was breathing so well during the walk , that I went hog -wild and started racewalking . I know better than to racewalk during an LSD, but I did anyway. And not only did I racewalk , but I racewalked at least 10 of the 16 miles. Shame on me!

2) Rather than doing this LSD walk at a recommended pace of 18-20 min/mile, my average pace was more like 12:30 (faster than race pace).

3) I tried to break in my new racing flats . 16 miles is way to far to try out new shoes, especially racing flats .This is what probably caused the shin splints and calf pain. Instead , I should have worn shoes that had more cushioning and a higher heel , which would have not only saved my shins, would have also discouraged me from racewalking ( it’s too difficult to racewalk in running shoes).

4) I think the reason my biceps were cramping , is because of all the racewalking I did (when you racewalk, you swing your arms a lot).

5) Though I thought I was well hydrated before the walk, I didn’t count on sweating as much as I did. Following the walk, I had all the symptoms of hyponatremia . Loosing too much sodium is probably another reason why I had such a problem with muscle cramping .

6) Finally, I just plain over- did it. I jumped from 13 miles to 16 in two weeks. Too fast , too soon. My body hasn’t acclimated to the longer distances yet.

So , with all this in mind, hopefully I will do a better job with my next LSD , which is 18 miles 2 weeks from now.

….more like cussing in the rain.
Last weekend, right on schedule, I did my 18 miler …..in the pouring rain! Actually, it was 15 miles in the pouring rain, the first 3 miles was only drizzle.

I ‘d been tracking this particular storm for several days and while they were predicting that the rain would start falling in San Francisco around 10am, I was hoping that if I started my walk early enough , that I could beat the brunt of it. Well, I lost that bet. As soon I had made it to the mid-span of the Golden Gate bridge, the sky opened up . With no where to take shelter and the inability to run to get out of the rain faster , I got totally drenched. It rained non-stop for the rest of the day.

Actually the rain and wind didn’t bother me that much (other than the fact that I couldn’t see very well ahead of me). No, it was more the realization that unlike most athletes, my lungs pretty much confine me to a narrow range of speed ( regular walking and fast walking), no matter what the circumstances. I was embarrassed by the fact that I had to walk across the bridge in the pouring rain, while everyone else ran through it. I must have looked awfully weird to passing motorists. What if the bridge was on fire or collapsing? Would I be able to run then? I guess I could do short racewalking intervals?

Anyway, by the time I finished my walk and made it back to my car ( about 3 1/2 hours later), I was soaked to the bone and was starting to shiver. Despite my legs being really sore, when I got home I decided against taking an ice bath and opted instead, for a luke warm shower. I figured that the exposure of cold temperatures during my 5 hour walk, had probably accomplished the same effect that an ice bath would have.

My 20 mile ( and last LSD for the season) is on February 16th , hopefully, not in the rain. Then its 4 weeks of blissful taper. Ah …we live for the taper huh.

For some reason this has been one the toughest training seasons I can remember. Not because of my lungs as you might guess, but because of persistent legs problems! It’s just one injury after another. Two weeks ago I pulled a hamstring muscle in my right leg, last weekend I developed an anterior shin splint on the same leg. When will it end! It hurts from the bottom of my butt cheek , all the way down to my shins when walk or bend. I’m sure these injuries didn’t cause themselves? I must be doing something wrong, but I just cant figure out what. Please don’t tell me its old age, or that I’m not stretching properly, or that I’m biting off more than I can chew by attempting a marathon with just 10 weeks of training…. that would just make too much sense!

One things for sure, I don’t wanna make these injuries worse and possibly jeopardize my participation in the Rome marathon , so I’m gonna postpone my scheduled 18 miler for another two weeks and probably eliminate the 20 miler all together . I’ll start my taper six weeks before the race instead of four like I usually do. Hopefully this extra down time will allow my strained muscles to heal. I just hope I havent wiped out all the gains I’ve made up to this point . With the marathon only 7 weeks away, I don’t have time to start from scratch.

OK, the upside to this little break in training, is that it’s afforded me some extra time to do some much needed blog revamping. I wanna thank Sandi of LunaStone Designs for convincing me to switch over to the Wordpress platform at my own domain( she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.) Sandi has helped me with several of my blog re-designs in the past, and is an awesome person to work with…I highly recommend her.

I see I’m not the only one getting way ahead of myself… (Rick)

This past Saturday I was supposed to do my first in a series of long slow walks ( 15 miles maximum )… at least that was the plan. I was kinda dreading this walk anyway because Id been experiencing a lot hamstring and knee pain for the previous couple of weeks .Well despite my better judgment, I did the walk anyway and sure enough , at around mile 9, I could feel my right knee start to stiffen up .When I would stop and try to bend and stretch it out, the back of my knee hurt like hell ( a sure sign of a hamstring strain and/or weak quads) Oh great..Just what I need in the middle of marathon training.

OK, so I’m limping my way through the remainder of my walk, when at around 2 miles from my finish, I run into a friend who was just starting his walk in the opposite direction. He’s kinda new to the whole walking thing and is training for the Rome marathon as well ( plus he’s my Dentist), so I figured I’d walk a few hundred yards with him to give him some pointers. Well, we got to chit chatting and before I knew it, I had backtracked almost 2 miles.
So now , rather than having only 2 miles left of my walk … I had 4 ! (For a walker… that’s a full hour !)
Well, those last 4 miles were not pretty. I had to stop and bend out my knee every other block which was excruciating but necessary to prevent a full on cramp. It got to the point where I was afraid to stop moving for fear that my knees totally lock up. I even thought of the unthinkable, like hailing a cap or hitching a ride on the trolley to get back to my car! Honestly, if this had been a real marathon, there’s no way I could have finished it. What started out as a relatively easy 15 miler , turned into a painful 18.7 miler. Thankfully , my lungs didn’t bother me that much until I got home, but now of course, I’m paying for it.

I guess the most frustrating thing, is that a lot of these types of juries are preventable. Things like legs cramps, runners knee, pulled hamstring muscles, ITB problems,etc, can be minimized if you educate yourself , use a little common sense and PRE-STRETCH before going hog wild on the course. Cramming in X number of miles in a short a period of time is not going to make me more prepared for a race, it’s just gonna injure me faster.
I should have waited until my legs were feeling better before attempting such a long walk, but I’m on a tight schedule for this upcoming marathon and I felt I couldn’t afford to miss even a single training walk.

Oh ..there one thing that was kinda funny though, when I got home I immediately filled bathtub with cold water as I usually do after a long training walk. After finally easing myself all the way into the tub and straightening both legs out, Winston my cat ( not knowing that the tub was full of water), sees me behind the curtain and decides he wants to play…so he leaps right into the tub ! Well, you can imagine the cats reaction when he realized that he was diving belly first into a tub of freezing water! Lucky for Winston, I managed to catch him in mid- air just as he hit the water , but the sudden jerk sent my right quad muscle into a major cramp.
Meanwhile, Winston takes off a like a bat out of hell ,circles the house and comes back for more. He thinks this is a new game!

Saturday I did my alternate week 10 mile LSD, and for the 2nd long walk in a row now, I had knee problems. Only this time…it was much worse.

I’m assuming it’s ITBS , but having never experienced this type of injury before, I can’t say for sure. All I know is that pain develops after about 7 miles into a walk, and seems to be located on the outside of my knee about 2 inches below the joint . When I press there , I can feel either a muscle or a tendon bulging out. I don’t have any pain above my knee or along my thigh, but the lateral shin muscles are sore.
Could it be some sort of shin splint or compartmental syndrome? My calf and shin muscles are over developed,but I haven’t had any problems with circulation of tingling in the toes.
I’m sure I didn’t help matters by racewalking on it after it was already hurting, but I was breathing well that day and I just couldn’t resist racewalking a few hundred feet every now and then.

Anyways, after I drove home I had a hard time bending my leg to get out of the car. I had to literally use my hands to pick up my leg, so I could get out. That can’t be good!
When I got into the house I immediately iced it and took motrin for the pain. As the day went on it continued to hurt and by later that night it was so bad I couldn’t sleep.

After two days it’s much better now, but it still aches when I bend my knee too much or lock it straight out.

So, does this sound like an ITB problem?? If it is, will I be able to continue with my LSDs without making things worse? ( I still have an 18 and a 20 miler I have to do before Portland, which is only 7 weeks away) OR should I skip one of those longer walks to rest my leg?

Because I’m only walking the marathon , I’m hoping that leg will hold out. Then again, being a walker, I’ll be on that leg twice as long ! I’m a little confused as what to do.