gokennergo.com

Well, happy post-4th to everyone out there, hope that your holiday went well.

I've been away from the log for a couple of days, but not the training! Running went well on Wednesday, though I did a little more exact measuring of the distance and it turns out that I'm not running quite as far as I had originally thought. I did go farther this time, because we were running 45 minutes instead of 40, but I figured out that the distance on Wednesday was about 4.2 miles, which means that I was probably only running about 3.7 miles or so before. Still, that's a lot farther than I used to run, which was about 0.0 miles.

Otherwise, the 4th came and went without incident. Leanne and I went to see The Bourne Identity, which I liked and she pretty much disliked, and ate dinner at Big Bowl. It was VERY good. It was a rest day, and I enjoyed the break.

This morning I went to the gym for cross- and strength-training. The woman who runs the show there stopped by while I was stretching out to show me a good stretch for my IT bands, and MAN does it hurt, but it's effective! My knees felt great while I was on the elliptical machine and they haven't really hurt today. Tomorrow we are supposed to run 6 miles on our own, so that will be the big test. I will definitely be doing the stretch that she showed be both before and after the run.

Well, I'm heading to bed now. I'll let you know how the run goes tomorrow. ~K
posted by Kenner Estes at 10:25 PM

Well, I ended up not running after all when I got home last night. My knees were still feeling a little iffy, and after all the research I did yesterday about ITBS I was a little paranoid about running when feeling any knee pain. Besides, I knew that I was going into the gym this morning to do cross-training so I figured that it would probably be better to just ice my knees and then get up fresh in the morning.

So, I used an elliptical machine this morning and everything seemed to go all right, it's fairly low-impact. 2.88 miles and 450 (or so) calories, not a bad workout for the morning. I did some strength training but still found that I hadn't really given myself enough time to do very many sets of anything. I ended up just doing 2 sets of a few different exercises for pecs, triceps, biceps, and calves. I'm trying to mix it up some but I really need to do more with my abs and back. Everyone says that those really take a lot of punishment during a marathon. I'm hoping to meet with the personal trainer at the gym next week to get some instruction on reisistance band exercises that will focus on my midsection and back. She also mentioned some Pilates stretches and movement that might be helpful so I'm going to ask her about this, as well. I may try to get into a class there at the gym, we'll see.

Otherwise, I did call and make an appointment with AthletiCo for next Monday so we'll hopefully get a handle on my knee problems. I am just going to need to see if I can't get my doctor to refer me there so that I can get it covered.

Food tip for the day: Lean Cuisine Hearty Portions Salisbury Steak. I'm not kidding. 3 full servings of vegetables, mashed potatoes, gravy, and meaty goodness. Mmmmm. This was highlighted for me today when I tried the LCHP Glazed Chicken. Not terrible, but nowhere near as good as the salisbury steak. My girlfriend laughs at me because I have the salisbury steak practically every day, but I make no apologies. Good stuff.

Keep your eyes peeled because I am going to be sending in my first batch of funds very soon. Once I do, I will put an indicator on the site of how much money has been raised so far, and I will adjust it accordingly as I receive more donations. Also, I am going to be putting an archive section on this log so that, if you have missed any or if you just want to review the struggle I mean joyous journey, you can do so. Stay tuned! -K
posted by Kenner Estes at 4:58 PM

Okay, get ready for a long one...

Saturday morning, 8 miles, no problem. I am so lying. Everything started out okay, but the truth is that I didn't hydrate the two previous days as well as I should have and also didn't really get enough sleep to be in top form for the run. However, I DID complete the 8 miles. My time was right about 1:23:30, which is just under a 10.5-minute mile. That's a little slower than I've been going, but I'm not upset about it. Like I've said before, I just want to keep going.

For you Chicagoans who are interested, the 8 miles we did started lakeside at Wilson, then we just ran the path down to North avenue and back. It seemed a lot farther on foot than it does when driving on Lake Shore Drive.

I ran into a real problem at Belmont on the return leg -- I got a cramp on my right side that kind of slowed me down. I slugged back some gatorade/water mixture and just ran through it, but it didn't loosen up until north of Irving Park, which is a fairly extended series of silent ouches. Again, it's really my fault just because I hadn't been drinking enough fluids the day before.

The real problem is my knees. It seems to be pretty clear that I have IT band problems. I noticed it a little bit during the 8-miler on Saturday, but it wasn't until we stopped running that it really spanked me. I was walking around a little bit, stiff-legged, because it's the flexion of the leg (especially up or down an incline or stairs) that causes the real pain, when a TNT trainer saw me and came over to ask me about it. She took my name and talked to me about what I was experiencing. She pegged it as probably being an ITBS problem, and it does seem to be a classic example of it. (A quick aside: for anyone who is not familiar with ITBS - "Iliotibial Band Syndrome", there are some great resources on the web. A good description of both the condition and its causes can be found by clicking here.) The trainer told me that I should look into getting orthotics and also that I need to visit AthletiCo for some assistance and direction on handling the problem. I am going to call them, I think that we get a free visit as a TNT trainee. Otherwise I need to try to get my insurance to cover it because I'm told by some others who have used the service that it can be fairly expensive. The TNT trainer is going to follow up with me next week, hopefully I'll have something good to tell her.

Anyway, I did get some cold packs that I can strap on my knees (mostly the left one, but the right one hurts a little bit, too) and I have a line on another possible product that might help a bit, Fabrifoam's PattStrap. I am going to wait to order those until I talk to someone who knows a little bit more about it, though. Meanwhile I am trying to take it easy a bit. We have officially started running a little bit longer on personal run days, 45 minutes instead of 40, but I didn't run this morning. I decided to run on the treadmill this evening when I get home from work because it should be a little less traumatic for my knees. I will stretch before and after and ice immediately afterwards. I also did buy a knee sleeve on Saturday afternoon that seemed to help a little bit, so I will probably wear that on my left and my old strap on my right when I use the treadmill, in hopes that they will lessen the strain even more.

Enough about my knee pain. Otherwise, my recovery was fine from the run, I didn't have any real muscle pain, no major soreness or anything like that. And, my wonderful girlfriend Leanne organized a surprise party for my thirtieth birthday so when I got home on Saturday from the movies with my friend Rachelle there were a ton of people in the apartment. It was a great time and thanks again to everyone who came and hung out to help me celebrate the death of my 20s. The cleanup on Sunday was nowhere near as much fun as the messmaking that we did on Saturday night.

I have to get going now. I'll keep you all posted on how things go with my knees. If you would like to speak to my knees directly, just e-mail me at kenner@gokennergo.com and I will forward your message along.

Take care. -K
posted by Kenner Estes at 12:29 PM