Fighting Blood Cancer

Please help me and Keri Bunkers fight Leukemia and Lymphoma. Keri is a friend of my daughter and is participating in "Team In Training".  Team in Training helps marathon runners raise funds to cure blood cancer.  They have already raised $850 million for blood cancer research, while helping their participants change their lives through running.  Keri will be running in the TC marathon this October.  Here is a link to her website.  You can donate online and the funds go directly to the organization.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/mn/twin08/kbunkers

Here is the link to Team In Training

http://www.teamintraining.org/tnt2008/1/

Legs are back

I took two days off from running after my 20 mile run on Sunday. My legs recovered quickly and now I have been running 8 miles each morning without any trouble. This coming Sunday I’ll do my last 20 mile run and then it’s taper down time to let the legs completely heal before the TC marathon.

Twenty Miles - Ouch!

My long run of 20 miles went well on Sunday, but for about 30 min after the run I had extreme pain in my legs. I’m not yet ready to go the entire 26.2 miles for a marathon. One more 20 mile run this coming weekend should help. Why, why do I do this?

1000 Miles; 312 Cheeseburgers

Today I ran my 1000th mile for the year. That’s about 112,316 calories burned from running. That amount of calories is equivalent to about 32 pounds of fat, or roughly 312 cheeseburgers. Now I can tell you I didn’t eat 312 cheeseburgers this year, but I also didn’t loose any weight. It must have been those chocolate milkshakes that went with the cheeseburgers.

Early in my adult life I had a hard time going forward. Jumping from job to job or some crazy money making idea I kept trying to take shortcuts to success. When I was at my bottom, my dad gave me some advice that I carry forward today. I don’t remember his exact words, which were beautifully put and I cannot do it justice, but here is kind of what he said. If you really want to get somewhere in life, you need to stick with one plan, put your nose to the grindstone and keep it there. At first it may seem like you are going nowhere, but after some time you’ll look back and see you have come a long way.

Today I looked back to the beginning of this year, when I was just starting chemotherapy and wow, I have come a long ways.

Physical Therapy

I saw a physical therapist yesterday about my problems with tendonitis or shin splints. She gave me some stretching and strengthening exercises. I know I should be doing these things, but I have neglected them since they do take extra time. If I want to stay serious with this running business, I better find the time to do it right. I guess I’ll have to set the alarm clock another 15 min earlier.

A Tough 13 Miles

The good news is that I’m back running and my tendonitis seems to be gone. However, after two and half weeks of virtually no running, my legs are no longer in top condition. My 13 mile run yesterday did go fairly well with a good time at 2 hours and 1 minute, which puts me on close pace to a 4 hour marathon. But my legs got pretty sore and stiff afterwards, much more than I expected. There’s no way I could run much farther at that speed without some serious pain or injury. Alright, I admit it, I have been secretly holding on to the goal of finishing under 4 hours at the TC marathon. That’s why I pushed yesterday’s run so hard. But now I fully realize this year is just not going to be that year. It’s not that I’m quitting. It’s going to be challenging enough just to make it to the TC marathon injury free and in good enough shape to complete it without lots of pain. I’ll be very happy with that.

Just what the doctor ordered – work!

I finally discovered the best thing for healing tendonitis – go to work. I’ve been on vacation the last two weeks and until Tuesday I’ve been working on house projects which involve being on my feet all day and standing on step ladders. That was too much activity for my tendonitis; what I needed was some serious rest. Going to work was just the ticket. At my job I sit on my butt all day, either talking on the phone or working on my laptop. Just three days of that was enough to completely heal my tendonitis. Yesterday after work I went for a 6 mile run and felt no pain. This weekend I’ll go for a 12 mile run, then next weekend for a 20 mile run. After that I should start my taper down, but I’m considering squeezing in one more 20 mile run with an abbreviated taper down. All the running websites I’ve been to recommend that you always do a full 3 week taper down, but the way I see it is that I’ll have a 4 week taper down split into two parts with a taper up in the middle. We’ll see how it works. Sometimes you have to challenge authority; that’s how new things are discovered.

Another Tendonitis/Cheeseburger Challenge

Tendonitis of a tendon running from my shinbone to my foot has grounded my running for the last two weeks. Learning from past lessons I am getting professional help on this. I still may be able to run the TC marathon, but it’ll take some careful strategy. I was getting real concerned last week because there appeared to be no progress with healing even though I was being very careful about not overstressing the tendon. Just a normal day of short walks lead to a very sore leg by the end of the day. However yesterday was a breakthrough day; I noticed some dramatic improvement. Now comes the tricky part – when do I start running again? I have almost 5 weeks before marathon time. I’ll plan out a training program with a drop dead date for starting to give my tendon as much time as possible to heal. If it isn’t ready by then, I’ll probably have drop out of the race. Meanwhile, since I’m not running, I’m not burning tons of calories I normally do. But my insatiable appetite hasn’t changed, so the excess calories are turning into excess waistline. I just can’t give up those cheeseburgers.

On a different note, you can see my BWCA photos in a much larger size by going to http://picasaweb.google.com/LKStrandjord/BWCA2008 , which is my Picasa website.