Crazy week

So here I am slacking on the posts again and not following through with my New Years resolution of training updates once a week. I guess I'll have to change that to a Chinese New Years resolution since that year has just started today.

As I said before, I am running again and am doing so semi-consistently. I feel like I'm healthy again, but am being very cautious as I hop on the comeback train again. I'll wait another week before posting training stuff up here because the past two weeks were all over the place. I had some decent runs with some cross training thrown in there and a bunch of core and strength work, but it still does not meet my standards of training worthy of publishing.

I also had a lot of things thrown in this week that distracted me from the consistency that I started with last week. It all started with a little road trip to Colorado as I helped my friend Tony move all his stuff some 2000+ Miles away. We left Boston on Sunday afternoon in the middle of a snow storm and headed west in a 22 foot moving truck with Tony's Subaru towing behind it. Without any major delays, we made the slow trek across the country, stopping only for gas and food/coffee.

Tony took the first 7 hours driving through the very snowy Massachusetts and a ways into New York. I then took over for the next 11 hours driving through a storm in Buffalo and some more snow in Indiana. Tony then relieved me for a couple hours before passing the reigns back in Illinois as I drove for the next 4 hours, again hitting some very snowy roads in the Chicago area. Tony had the pleasure of driving through most of Iowa as we had clear roads but saw some 30-40 cars and trucks that had gone off the road that morning in the storm and were awaiting tow trucks to pull them out. It was pretty surreal to see so many cars off the road including a couple 18 wheelers that were overturned. As you may know, Iowa is a pretty long state, but Nebraska is even longer and I made the riveting 8 hour drive through the entire state. Once I entered Colorado and the second straight night of driving, I completed my duties for the trip and let Tony finish up the last few hours.

After 38 hours on the road, we finally made it to Tony's apartment in Aurora (just outside of Denver) around 2:00am Tuesday morning and grabbed a couple hours of sleep before we unloaded the truck the next morning. We started unloading at about 5:30am and made pretty good time, cleaning everything out in just under 3 hours, giving us the rest of the day to relax and unwind a bit. The view from Tony's apartment can be seen below and in about 9 months when their house is built, they'll have an even better view of those Rockie Mountains every day, as seen below.




I debated taking a long nap before getting my run in for the day, but after checking the Half Marathon results online, I suddenly got motivated and wanted to get the run over with. The weather was absolutely gorgeous with clear skies and views of the Rockies, hitting record highs into the 70s. I had to take advantage of this weather and actually had a decent run considering how many hours I had been in the truck and how few hours I had slept over the last few days. It was also my first run over an hour in almost two months, which was very comforting. I was definitely tired during the run and the many cups of coffee that I consumed were quickly running out, but it felt good to finish the run and I had a great night of sleep after all of it was done. I got up Wednesday morning feeling much better and had another nice run at altitude before Tony and I hopped on a plane back to Boston.

Less than 48 hours later, I started in on my volunteer duties at the always exciting Terrier Invitational. This is a really great meet and one that I've competed in many times. Since I wasn't competing this time around, I figured I could still put my knowledge of the sport to good use. With the help of Dan Suher and Mike Lansing, we covered the meet for FloTrack and called some 200 races or so, making sure these athletes get recognized publicly for all their accomplishments. It was a long couple of days at the track but there were some really great performances across the board, including Jenn Donovan's US Qualifier in the Women's 3K, Justin Lutz's PR in the Men's 3K, Jess Minty's Indoor Debut/PR in the Women's 5K, Nate Jenkins battle in the Men's 5K and many more including the Men's Mile Championship race that ended up being the FloTrack Race of the Week. Be sure to check it out and look for more coverage of the Boston meets in the next few weeks.

Low Mileage Running, High Mileage Driving

I had planned on entering all my training from last week in the same style that I had come accustomed to in 2008. But after finishing the entries in my personal training log, I made an executive decision to wait another week before posting my training. This is partly due to the embarrassment of publishing a training week that didn't top 30 Miles, and partly due to the lack of enthusiasm or entertainment that I would be able to provide for the people reading it.

I do hope to be around the 40 Mile range this week and if that happens, I promise I'll detail the weekly log on here. Despite the fact that my mileage was low, I did attend practice this week for the first time of the indoor season. I didn't workout or anything, but I wanted to renew my membership and make an appearance to ensure my teammates that I hadn't just shown up for free bag day and then run off to another club. I am indeed an official member of the NB Boston team once again and intend on representing them to the best of my ability in the coming years.

Speaking of that, I would like to run some big races in 2009, but I do not have an official plan for what races those will be. In fact, I don't even have an unofficial plan yet. The only plan right now is to maintain an injury free state and regain fitness as efficiently and effectively as possible. Much like Pete Rea talks about here, I am making "process goals" for myself. As you all now, there are many things that we cannot control in this sport and therefore, it is sometimes difficult to accomplish our goals of running PRs or winning races. However, we can accomplish our "process goals", because they are within our control. I may not be able to control how healthy I'll be in 2009 or how fast I'll get, but I can control the amount of stretching I do. I can control how many times a week I do my core routines and strength exercises, and how often I follow up with chiropractic, massage, or physical therapy, etc. If I can accomplish these "process goals" then I believe I will have a better chance of accomplishing those "outcome goals" of running PRs and qualifying for national championships. There is always a chance that I still may fall short of those outcome goals, but as long as I know I did all I could through these process goals, then it will be easier to keep driving forward at the end of the year.

I have certainly allowed myself to think about possibilities for races in 2009, but I do not want to put deadlines on my fitness progression and force myself to do something I'm not ready for. I'm not sure if I can speak for any of you, but I know I have fallen into this habit in the past. As I alluded to in my upcoming races sidebar on the right here, I want to keep many of the national championship races in mind throughout 2009. I certainly want to arrive at that national stage ready to compete at a national level. I will just need to figure out which ones will give me the best benefit.

Moving on... as many of you are aware, I've done a bit of traveling in the past few years. Maybe not as much as some people, but certainly more than the average person, especially the amount done by driving. So I guess I have built up somewhat of a reputation for being able to put in long hours on the road, because I have recently been recruited to make another road trip. One of my former employers and good friends, Tony, is moving from New Hampshire to Colorado and needs some help. On this coming Sunday, I will be getting into a moving truck and driving straight through from Boston to Denver while switching shifts on this 36 hour drive. This will be the third time that I've made this drive so I know what to expect. Once we arrive in Denver, we'll unpack the truck and fly back to Boston on Wednesday. It will surely be an interesting experience and I'll try to post any entertaining stories here when I get back.

For those of you that fall along that driving path between Boston and Denver, I will not be able to stop for visits unless you meet us at a gas station off of Rt 80. However, I'll try to at least give you a call as I'm passing through.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that I've started doing some advertising on this thing. Since I haven't had a lot to say here lately, I figured I'd at least point you towards some other blogs with interesting material. Scroll down the sidebar on the right and you'll find a few of the blogs that I spend hours reading every week. I didn't specifically ask these people if advertising their blog was ok, but I used my own judgement and just put up the ones that seemed like they would be ok with it. Please let me know otherwise.

More to come so stay tuned.

What happened to JC?

So how's everyone doing out there? Or maybe I should ask, is anyone out there? I can't believe how long I've gone without posting and I'd like to apologize to those of you that have actually checked this thing each week only to find the same unfinished post from November. It's amazing how you miss one weekly post and then you turn around and all of a sudden you've gone six weeks and it's a whole new year.

Well, this is me getting back on track (in more ways than one). Like this guy, as we enter 2009, I vow to get back into a weekly routine of logging all my training on here, even if that training is not all that great. As bad as I feel about not posting in those six weeks, I have to admit that there hasn't been anything real exciting to report on the running side of things, which just happens to be the back bone of this blog.

To help bring everyone up to speed, let's briefly recap 2008 so you get a better idea of what we're dealing with.

Leading into 2008, I was probably in the best shape of my life, coming off a very solid XC season and ready to have a stellar track season. A couple days before the new year, I took a nasty spill on some ice and busted my hip. Ok, it wasn't busted, but it was pretty badly bruised, hurt like hell, and put me out of commission for a while. A week later, I was running again. Eager to make up for lost ground, I jumped back into some high intensity training and tried to resume the plan I had set out for the winter. A few weeks later, I strained my hamstring in a workout and again missed some crucial training. I continued training at a mediocre level, ran some mediocre races, went to Ireland, and finally came back around by the end of February. Over the next couple months, I had a really great stretch of training and was getting some good workouts in with this guy as he was prepping for the Boston Marathon. Despite the fact that I was dealing with some issues at work during this time, I felt I was back to (or very close to) the best shape of my life.

Feeling very optimistic about where things were going and what possibilities might be presented to me, I decided to quit the job that was causing some stress and just focus on the task at hand, which was running fast. Two weeks later, I was literally halted in my tracks with excruciating pain in my right shin. I had an acute flare up of my tibialis anterior, causing a very painful compartmental syndrome. I ended up cutting my season short and started the longest break from running of my career. This closed a couple doors for me that I was hoping to open and I became desperate to find something to fill the void.

At the end of May, I was presented with the opportunity to join a training group in Southern California. I accepted the offer, packed my stuff, and moved there at the end of June. I drove from Mass to Cali in 5 days and then hopped on a plane to Eugene for the Olympic Trials. It was around this time that I was finally getting back into running again, which eventually turned into actual training. While in CA, I slowly built up my mileage and regained my strength as an athlete. However, there were some issues with the situation I was in which ultimately led to me leaving the program and heading back to the East Coast. On top of this frustrating situation, I had strained my hamstring in a workout, which ended up causing me trouble over the next 6-8 weeks. I was able to deal with it and actually did a couple races upon returning to New England in November, but wasn't getting in the type of training I wanted.

And that's about where I left off in my last post.

I am now officially back on the New Balance Boston squad and again under the guidance of our great coach, Kevin Curtin. It feels good to be back on a team with so much peer support and organization, and I knew right away when I returned that it was a step in the right direction from where I was. Unfortunately, after a couple workouts with the team, I started having some more injury issues, including an issue with my right hip and right forefoot. The hamstring issue seemed to be clearing up and the hip pain was tolerable, but it was the mysterious foot injury that would again put me out of commission for a few weeks. With the frustration building again, I decided to take a step back and just focus on settling back into the Boston area and finding a lifestyle that could meet my needs and aspirations.

I played out hundreds of scenarios in my head and ultimately decided to move in with some family members in Taunton (about 45 min south of Boston) until I sorted things out. I also started working as a server at the Olive Garden as an easy way to make money until I decide what my next career move will entail. I started seeing my chiropractor again and getting massages as needed to help in the healing process and did as much cross training and strength training as I could to limit any loss of fitness. In addition to letting my body heal, and my bank account build back up, I've also used this time to get reacquainted with my friends and teammates in the area. As you can imagine, the holidays presented some great opportunities to do this, but also presented many distractions. I haven't had a lot of extra time and I guess that is my main excuse for not updating this thing. I also have limited internet access where I'm staying right now, so some of my usual web-based routines have been limited as well.

Without getting too far off topic, I will say that I am now running again. The hamstring issue is a thing of the past, the hip seems to be cleared up with the help of chiropractic therapy, and the foot injury has improved to the point where I think I can cautiously resume a regular training schedule.

I know this post hasn't included any specific training from my log, but I think I've written enough already and will therefore start back on the more training specific posts next week. In the meantime, feel free to contact me with any questions about things I've talked about and I hope that I can provide you with a sufficient answer. I will also work on finishing up the Running Across America post that I started and will try to update it on a semi regular basis.

Before I close, I just want to update you on another guy that has been trying to figure out which path to choose as well. Steve Magness, who was my roommate and training partner in California, left the program about a week after I did and moved back to his home in Houston. Just recently, he took another big step and moved to Northern Virginia to join Scott Razcko's training group. It should be a great fit for him and I wish him lots of success there.

Stay tuned for what I hope will be a much healthier and happier 2009.