The Beast and Me

Thanks for all those who were concerned about the status of my behind recently. It's been a little more than two weeks since I injured my left glute/hip and I'm happy to report that there have been no serious issues lately. Still some stiffness, but I found a few new stretching exercises that have helped out enormously.

The reason for the picture of the shoe above is that, as you might've guessed, I am sporting a brand spanking new pair of Brooks running shoes. Thanks to co-worker John for reccommending I visit a specialty running store to be fitted with a shoe that's appropriate for my individual needs. I found a local joint in Dunedin, Fla., down here and man it was a great experience.

The guy at the store had me walk without my shoes on and with them on, and then asked me to run a little bit so he could observe my technique. I was very impressed, because the guy could tell I was rolling my right ankle slightly and wondered if I had ever done anything to it. Why yes! I had in fact sprained that thing multiple times.

He pointed to my New Balance shoes and said, "Never wear those again." Now, this could've been a sales ploy, but after he broke down how my feet and ankles worked and how I needed a shoe with better support, I was sold and willing to listen to anything this guy had to offer. He suggested I try the above shoe and I could immediately tell a different.

Apparently, the type of New Balance shoes I bought were better suited for someone with flat feet. I have a medium arch, according to Shoe Store Guy, and shouldn't wear NB shoes. Never again will I simply walk into a sports store and grab a pair of shoes that looks cool. Go to a specialty running store and have this done if you are an avid runner/walker.

On a different note, I've got to say that having a professional athlete marvel at an Average Joe's athletic venture is a great confidence booster. Earlier this week, Jays outfielder Reed Johnson and I were chatting at the ballpark and he mentioned he saw me running the other day around our condo complex. "I don't know how you do that," said Johnson, referring to my running long distances.

He and I had talked previously about how I was training for a marathon after I ran by he and hiw wife and their dog Shooter earlier this spring. Now, this is a guy who is a finely-tuned athlete. One of the top outfielders in the game and a former gymnast. He's impressed with what I'm doing? That felt good to hear.

Then, also earlier this week, I was walking back to my condo and stopped for a minute to chat with Toronto pitcher Jason Frasor, who was out walking his dog Cosmo. He asked how far I had just run, and I said "Six miles at eight minutes per." He laughed and said, "You trying to make the team or something?" Nice.

Needless to say, I've been feeling a little better recently. I took a full week off from running following the minor injury, and it was killing me not to be out there. By the end of that week, I was getting really stir crazy mentally. It's strange after a while how you wind up feeling like you need that fix. There's times during the day when I actually plot out when and how far I'm going to run that night. I'm a crazy person, I know.

Things didn't go so hot my first few times out after the long layoff. The low point was a three-mile run on March 15 that I needed nearly 26 minutes to complete. OK, for some people that's not that bad. But averaging over 8:30 per mile for three miles when I can usually stick between 7:10-7:30 per miles over that distance was depressing. I felt defeated.

I took the day off after that and returned with a sub-8 minute average on a six mile run. Then, after buying the shoes, I ran a 7:15 first mile in my new footwear and averaged 7:48 over 4 miles. Skipping forward to today, there were a few other runs in there, I ran 3 miles at 7:23 per miles. So, I'm getting back to my usual pace. Man, it's a good feeling, too.

So far this week, I'm up to 22 miles with one day to go. That equals my highest weekly output since I've been in Florida, and I plan on running again tomorrow. I've ran a total of 89 miles since heading down here to the Sunshine State, averaging nearly 4.5 miles per run. It all comes to an end soon, too. I head back to Toronto on Friday and the season opens on March 31.

I'm interested to see how I adjust to running on treadmills again once I'm stuck in hotels during the year. I know I won't be able to get outdoor runs in as often as I'd like. Balancing my training with the schedule I have is going to be a tough task.

I'm a Hipster Doofus

Yeah, see that pathetic looking dude over there on the right? That's me. I've become my own pain in the butt, literally.

I've had some discomfort in my hip area for about a month now I'd say. I even went as far as talking about the matter with the Blue Jays strength and conditioning guru to see what I might be doing wrong. He gave me some tips and everything seems to be going fine since.

Then around Sunday (six days ago), the discomfort flared up a little more, unsurprisingly, the day after I logged 10 miles. I didn't think much of it and I ran a hard three miles on Monday -- sticking to my program -- and on Tuesday, man, I could barely get out of bed. The discomfort had turned into full-fledged pain.

I continued to think it was the left side of my hip, but upon further review, the source is deep in my left glute. Yeah, my left cheek. So I googled "Pain deep in buttocks" and found this thing called Piriformis Syndrome, which I may or may not have, but includes symptoms that I've been having -- hip discomfort being one of them.

It says this "syndrome" is more common in women than in men, but that in other cases it can be common among runners. Hmmm, I seem to fall within that group (Runners -- not women!). Kelly was down here this past week and she thinks it could simply be from running on the hard promenade, which is made up of cobblestones. It could be that, combine with the running form I discussed with the Jays guy.

He said that one problem I could be having is running too upright, suggesting that I lean slightly forward during my stride instead. I thought that was going well, but maybe I reverted back to a more upright technique while logging the 10 miles on Saturday. It's been uncomfortable to go up stairs, get up from my seat, get out of bed and at times even to walk.

Needless to say, I haven't logged any miles since Monday, even though I've been going stir crazy. It's weird how I start getting really antsy if I haven't gone running in a couple days. I'm itching to get back out there and I'll probably start with a slow three miles tomorrow (Monday). The wife isn't here to tell me to take it easy any more, so if I do go running, I need to at least force myself to focus on finishing, not setting record time or anything.

That 10 mile run was great, though. I finished in 1:21:31, or a little more than 8 minutes per mile. My splits were 8:09/8:21/8:24/8:23/8:20/8:23/8:12/8:06/8:10/7:03. Yeah, I had enough leftover at the end to run nearly a 7-minute mile on the last mile. I could've kept the pace slower and done a few more miles, but I figured 10 was a solid long run at this point.

The following day, which apparently wrecked my body, I ran 3 miles in 21:48 (7:08/7:10/7:30). That last mile might've been more in line with the first two had it not been for a giant puddle of water that I didn't see. It felt like my whole foot went under and my entire right shoe and sock were soaked with about 1/4 of a mile to go. I was not happy, cuz I was hoping to break 21 minutes. Ah, well. I ended up breaking me instead.

We'll see how I feel this week...