Happy spring, indeed

At least the bad stuff rolls in after I get my shitty 22-miler in the books. Long story short, if I were to be a homicide victim, the ideal death would be strangulation by my IT bands. They were inflamed at 18 miles, dipped in concrete by 19, so really I ran 19 miles and walked the last three. Somehow I'll get through the marathon in 27 days -- I always do. It'll just be as painful as every one before.

Anyway, here's what's going down in the Cowboy State today.

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHEYENNE WY
434 AM MDT MON MAR 23 2009

A MAJOR EARLY SPRING STORM WILL PRODUCE SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL
AND STRONG WINDS TO THE AREA TODAY AND TONIGHT
.A INTENSE SPRING STORM SYSTEM WILL MOVE ACROSS THE CENTRAL
ROCKIES TODAY AND THEN EAST AND OVER THE CENTRAL PLAINS
STATES BY SUNRISE TUESDAY MORNING.  THE STORM SYSTEM WILL
PRODUCE SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL AND STRONG NORTHERLY WINDS
OVER SOUTHEAST WYOMING AND THE WESTERN NEBRASKA PANHANDLE
THROUGH TONIGHT. BLIZZARD CONDITIONS WILL RESULT OVER
MUCH OF THAT AREA CREATING
HAZARDOUS TRAVEL.
WYZ059-060-064>070-232200-
/O.CON.KCYS.BZ.W.0002.090323T1200Z-090324T1200Z/
CONVERSE-NIOBRARA-NORTH LARAMIE RANGE-LARAMIE VALLEY-
LARAMIE RANGE-PLATTE-GOSHEN-CHEYENNE FOOTHILLS-PINE BLUFFS-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...DOUGLAS...GLENROCK...LUSK...GARRETT...
LARAMIE...BUFORD...HORSE CREEK...WHEATLAND...GUERNSEY...
TORRINGTON...CHEYENNE...PINE BLUFFS
434 AM MDT MON MAR 23 2009

BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM MDT TUESDAY
A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM MDT TUESDAY.
SNOW WILL SPREAD OVER ALL OF SOUTHEAST WYOMING BY 8 AM AND
WILL CONTINUE THROUGH TONIGHT. THE SNOW WILL BE HEAVY AT
TIMES TODAY AND EARLY TONIGHT. ACCUMULATIONS OF 12 TO 18
INCHES IN EAST CENTRAL WYOMING WITH UP TO 20 INCHES IN
THE NORTHERN LARAMIE RANGE. FIVE TO 10 INCHES OF SNOW WILL
ACCUMULATE OVER THE REST OF SOUTHEAST WYOMING BY SUNRISE
TUESDAY. ALSO...NORTH WINDS WILL BE GUSTING 45 TO 55 MPH
WHICH WHEN COMBINED WITH THE HEAVY SNOW WILL CREATE BLIZZARD
CONDITIONS ACROSS THE AREA.
A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE
EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG
WINDS AND POOR VISIBILITIES ARE LIKELY. THIS WILL LEAD TO
WHITEOUT CONDITIONS...MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.
DO NOT TRAVEL. IF YOU MUST...HAVE A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT WITH
YOU. IF YOU GET STRANDED...STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE. FOR
SPECIFIC ROAD AND TRAVEL CONDITIONS IN WYOMING AND NEBRASKA
...PLEASE DIAL 5 1 1.

False alarm

All it took was a nixed 14-miler, a tight wrap from an Ace bandage, and some well-placed ice.

The tendons on both sides of my left ankle are fine. I ran 4 miles Monday without pain, and have had no issues in my runs since. Tomorrow is the big test, a 22-miler out into one of the canyons, as much of it on the dirt and gravel shoulder as I can manage.

Today's 10-miler still taxed my IT bands, however, and I'm thinking that might be my biggest stumbling block to achieving my goals. There's no way I can run 7:27 per mile for 26.2 miles if my thighs feel like they've been dipped in concrete after 14, 16, 18 miles at that pace. Nor will I be able to run a 3:30 marathon off the bike in the same situation. Is this just something I'll get used to, that feeling that my thighs will explode and I'll look like Hank Hill's dad for the rest of my life if I take one more stride?

• So there is a negative to all this. I spent $18 more this month on groceries than I did last month. On the one hand, I do enjoy eating whatever I want knowing full well the "calories burned" column on my heart monitor will read deep into triple digits, and possibly quadruple digits. On the other hand, I'd rather not eat myself out of my apartment, or out of my car. I do have taxes to pay and other financial commitments to meet, so I'd rather Safeway not end up as my biggest beneficiary. 

Hey, I enjoy shoveling food into my face as much as any American. At the same time nothing in this world keeps me awake nights like my finances, and the rumbling in my stomach might as well be the sound of a cash register like at the beginning of Pink Floyd's "Money." Feed the beast!

• This is my favorite time of year sports-wise, though it sucks to not have any way of pulling in a TV signal. Nor can I sit at the computer and watch my bracket crumble in real time. It's probably a good thing, then, that I will finish a 52-mile week this weekend, rather than having planted my skinny posterior on the futon watching the tall student-athletes make their universities and inveterate gamblers untold sums of money that they'll never see. 

Pain

This in no way trivializes the pain other people might be feeling. Like one friend facing down guillotine of corporate bullshit that could end her career. Or the one who recently gave birth nine weeks early. Or my niece, whose first lacrosse season might have ended before it started thanks to a stress fracture.

Anyway, running has been pain-free so far, which is good because it's taken more energy than I thought it should to get my body used to the reduced amount of oxygen. There's been a blister here, a toenail gash (and bloody sock) there, but I've stayed healthy.

Until yesterday.

Toward the end of a flat nine-miler, a sharp pain shot up and down my left leg, starting near my ankle. First though: Stress fracture. Twenty-five years of running now taking its toll. I tried stretching it out (though what you can do to stretch out a bone remains a mystery), slowed down, walked a bit, hoped like crazy... nothing worked. It still hurt. 

The nine-miler became a seven-and-a-half miler, and I stumbled home for an ice pack. I sat on the couch with my left foot propped up on an exercise ball and a Zip-loc bag of ice. I tried to read Sports Illustrated but with five weeks to go before my marathon, I pondered the possibilities. 

This is a place I haven't had pain before. The kicking motion in the water gives my ankles ridiculous flexibility, and the only time I've even sprained it (through years and years of team sports) was when I rolled it during a pickup basketball game in college. With the pain I had I wondered if how much Advil it would take to get through a marathon, or if maybe I should withdraw now and get myself healed before starting to train for Ironman in June.

My ankle sufficiently numbed, I went through the rest of my day. That night, as I walked downtown to meet some friends for drinks, I jogged a little and noticed something I hadn't before. Rather than a sting when my foot hit the ground, it was when my foot left the ground and cocked back. That means it's a tendon or ligament issue. Deep breath. Sigh of relief.

That means I can rest it, ice it, compress it (with a tight wrap from an ace bandage) elevate it and call it good. I bailed on a 14-miler today and while I hate to do that, I've got a 22-miler on Sunday that I consider far more critical. I'll run four easy miles tomorrow and see what happens. And I'll determine how to proceed from there.

My HRM says I'm dead, or the first 20-miler

For some reason I'm still leery of going real long in Laramie, partly because of the wind but mostly because of the altitude. Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill but I'd rather not try to run long with my lungs struggling for every last breath — at least not yet. 

So even though Laramie reported a high in the upper 50s on Sunday (and with nary a wind gust approaching 20 mph), I still headed down to Fort Collins to run 20 miles on the Poudre and Spring Creek Trails. I set off at what I thought was a leisurely, long run pace but it felt quick for some reason. But I stayed with it.

Now, why do I not have specifics as to the nature of the pace? There are no mile markers on either path. And my heart rate monitor didn't work. I licked it, I dumped water on it, then I dumped some more water on it, and still the display on my watch read "---." So my $200 watch is now... a watch. 

I ran. And I completely drank all of four Fuel Belt bottles of stuff — 12 ounces of water, 12 ounces of Fierce Grape Gatorade. Got to see some of the same places I did when I ran there a few weeks back. That's how I can honestly say I ran 20 miles. Still, I just stopped and walked when my watch read 3 hours. That's all my legs would take. My IT bands started revolting at 2:30, and then they twisted like hair ribbons after my last fuel stop at 2:45. So I decided I'd walk the last little bit if it meant I could extend my legs to reach the pedals of my car.

Oh yeah, genius that I am, I forgot to pack Sport Stick in my bag. That's the stuff that will allow my thighs rub together without creating enough friction to start a fire. By the last 15 minutes I was running bowlegged, so you can imagine what it felt like when I applied the first of three coats of aloe that night. Lessen (ow) learned.

I'm OK with the run but I need to figure out how to push out that pain threshold. Or maybe just get my legs used to running great distances. Training probably would do me some good. It's warmed up now so I have no excuses for blowing off workouts. I have 48 days left as of today.