St. George Marathon Lottery

The results of the St. George Marathon Lottery were posted on Monday night. I received the following email notification:

We regret to inform you that your name was not selected in the 2009 St. George Marathon lottery. We randomly selected 7200 runners of the 10,510 registrants from 49 states and 10 countries. We wish that we had the ability to accept all registrants.

 

Just what I wanted to hear on top of having to withdraw from the Ogden Marathon. If I do want to run the St. George Marathon this year, my only chance is to finish the Grand Slam series. Since I cannot run Ogden, I will now have to try the Top of Utah Marathon on September 19. It is only 2 weeks before St. George, but if I just run both races instead of racing them, that will still put me on track for running the OV 50 miler at the end of October.

On the bright side – I get a guaranteed entry in 2010 because my name has not been drawn in either the 2008 or 2009 lotteries.

Across the Years 2009

I received an email earlier this week letting me know that the Across the Years race for 2009 has been cancelled due to scheduling issues. I was planning on trying to get an entry in this race – but guess I will put that off until 2010 or 2011. Maybe they cancelled it to save me from myself.

DNS Frustration and the Ogden Marathon

Tomorrow (May 16^th) is the Ogden Marathon and I have been looking forward to running it ever since I had to withdraw last year because of surgery (I can't understand why they thought I shouldn't run a marathon 3 days after a hysterectomy). My training was going well, I had two beautiful runs in the mountains last Friday and Saturday (I will post about them this weekend), everything was set for a nice marathon day.

Then, out of the blue, BLAM – I came up lame. I was walking through Target last Saturday and suddenly couldn't walk without limping on my right leg. I had a serious ache/pain hitting in the hamstring and buttocks area of the right leg. I made it home and iced the leg and took anti-inflammatories and just hoped it was from being out and about all day long.

Sunday afternoon I took my puppy for a walk, and felt the pain in the leg again. Now I was getting concerned. C'mon – less than a week until a marathon. I didn't need to have this on top of my DNF in March. This race was going to be my redemption.

Sunday night I did some serious pondering. I think the injury to the right leg possibly started a couple of weeks earlier when I felt something 'a little funny' in the front of the right hip. No pain – it just felt off. During my trail run on Friday night I caught a toe on a rock and did a nice faceplant – catching myself on my left elbow and hand and on the right knee and thigh. I ran another 3+ miles after that with no problems (other than my elbow dripping blood – but that is part of the fun). Saturday morning I went back and ran that same trail and another mile on top of that. I twisted my right ankle about a mile in and was able to shake it off after a few minutes and didn't have any other problems. However, as soon as the run ended – I had to sit for 2 hours outside in an uncomfortable chair for a boring Homeowner's Association Meeting.

Monday I started the desperate bid to get healthy enough to run the race. I found a new chiropractor in my area and spent time with him on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. He did a lot of aligning and some electro therapy/traction each day. Monday he said there was a lot of tightness in the sacroiliac area. Tuesday and Wednesday the pain seemed to focus in on the piroformis muscle. Monday night and Wednesday night I went to Leslie Peterson's house and got massage and mobility therapy. She too found that the piroformis was really inflamed (I about went through the roof when it was massaged).

Researching Piroformis Syndrome – it appears that the injury stems from that muscle. I will be working on continued stretching/icing/strengthening the muscles involved in this area to prevent further future injury.

My decision – my gut instinct tells me that I should not run the race tomorrow. It is really depressing to not be able to do this after all my training, but I have to go with my gut instinct and preserve my sanity (which is already questionable) by being able to workout without a major injury. Now I just have to sit back and listen to what a great marathon it is from my running buddies.

Recovery is over

I did a run in the Avenues and up City Creek Canyon this morning with my friend Marion and did not feel any twinges in the IT band. This means that my recovery plan has worked as I intended it to (thank heavens). I think I can now cautiously start putting hills back in my workouts – but will still play it cautious on downhills for a while.

The Ogden Marathon is coming up again in 2+ weeks on May 16^th. This race holds a special place in my heart because Ogden was my very first marathon in 2004. How terrifying and exhilarating it was to contemplate that first 26.2 miles and I was so grateful to my family for showing up and supporting me and to my good friend, Vic Mason, who got me started running/walking marathons and met me at mile 18 to take me in to the finish. I have run this race every year since that first one, with the exception of 2008. For some reason, my doctor wouldn't let me run a race three days after major abdominal surgery.

I'm not quite in the condition I wanted to be for Ogden due to the injury and recovery, but I am optimistic for a good time (not a great time) as far as my speed and a great time as far as being out there running again. My plan is to run 9 minutes/ walk 1 minute from the very start and be conservative until part way down the canyon and then start pushing myself if my knee is feeling good.

One of the disadvantages of having so many races already planned out is that my Saturdays are pretty full. That same day is my sister's first triathlon and I would love to be there cheering her on – but can't be in two places at the same time (I'm working on that as a goal for next year). Hopefully she knows that in my heart and mind I will be thinking of her and wishing her a great race and a wonderful day.

Crazy Comparisons

OK - I have to admit that sometimes when you are running or walking for long distances - the silliest things run through your mind. Maybe its a form of self-amusement - but if it helps deal with pain and/or boredom - I will take it.

For instance, today I was running with a group of women from the Fast Running Blog. Except - I am the slowest person there - so I was actually running alone 'far behind' a group of women from the Fast Running Blog. Another woman I passed earlier on my run turned around before the actual end of the trail and, for some silly reason, this annoyed me, so I made a game out of trying to catch her before we got back on the old section of the trail (I was about 1/2 mile behind and had 2 miles to catch her in). She was running on the paved trail, I was making my own trail in the dirt fields beside the trail. I was actually pretending I was a vampire chasing down my food and loved when I came out from behind a long stretch of mounds of dirt and had actually caught up to her.

Another thing that crossed my mind today was a comparison table between asphalt and trail running. I'm sure it was more fascinating to me than it will be to anyone else, but here it is:

Criteria Considered	Asphalt	Trails
Running Speed	Faster	Slower
Effect on leg joints	Harder	Easier
Can left mind drift	Most of the time	Rarely - need to watch trail
Chances of a face plant	Low	Moderate to Medium
Proprioception benefits	Low	Medium
Abiliity to get away from traffic	Low	Medium to high
Percentage of leg and core muscles used	Average - you tend to develop the same ones	Higher than average - terrain uses all muscles

Yoga Podcast Recommendation

As part of my recuperation process, I started looking at yoga last week. I had bought one DVD on it and enjoyed that, but I also wanted to experience other yoga instructors (don't ask me what they are called).

I went out to iTunes and downloaded several video podcasts on both yoga and pilates. Tonight I started looking at some of the ones I had chosen. A couple didn't meet my needs and were immediately sent to the infamous recycle bin.

One podcast I tried tonight got me hooked. I tried just one episode - Yoga in a Chair and loved the instructor and the workout. I highly recommend this podcast series: YOGAmazing - Yoga Lifestyle.

Training continues

I am recovering well from the IT Band injury. My treatments have included 800 mg of Ibuprofen 3x daily, ice, rest (one week off from running), and a great massage from my friend, Leslie Peterson.

I have tons of surplus energy, but when I do run, I find I get tired much easier than just a few weeks ago. That is a bit frustrating, but I am sure with patience it will heal. I am trying to wear an IT Band compression strap when exercising to keep the IT Band from flaring up. I have also done a lot of cross training - including weight lifting, bicycling (still recovering from a 22 mile ride last night), yoga, water running, and swimming. I am only running 3-4 days this week and going to maintain the cross training throughout the summer.

In hindsight - it is probably good that the Red Mountain 50K race that was scheduled for 10 days from now was cancelled for economic reasons. I would want to run the entire race and probably do some serious damage.

This has also been a great time to catch up on reading some running books and magazines and plan my grandiose schemes that I will never follow through with.