The Adventures of Cowboy Hazel

“After years of waiting… Now it’s your turn!” Thus read the big envelope sitting in my mailbox from the New York Jets this afternoon when I got back from the pharmacy (picking up more of that nasty smelling lotion). There’s not a lot that could have taken my mind off the misery that not running because of injury is, but finding out that my years of being on the waiting list for season tickets had finally paid off was definitely up there.

I logged onto their website, checked for seats and somehow, amazingly, ended up with a pair of tickets 20 rows back on the main level! They’re on the 10-yard-line, which isn’t ideal, but there’s no way I can complain… To have season tickets for the Jets on the main level!? I can’t even believe my good fortune.

There is, however, some bad news that goes along with that — the price tag. I spent a little over $1800 on the tickets so pretty much every other non-required expense just got shut down. No more sailing trip to the Bahamas. No more bicycle. No more Yankees games this year (except the ones I already have tickets too). I’ll probably have to sell a couple games too because I really want to be saving up money for my future house… Good news on that is that tickets in my section are already going for like $200 each on StubHub.

So, I finally have my childhood dream of being a season ticket holder. It didn’t come in the city I thought it would, but it feels very good nonetheless. I’m very excited to see what the Jets put together this year with Mark Sanchez in the mix. I have a good feeling about my adopted team.

In running news: I went for a super-slow run this evening and made it about two-and-a-half miles before the knee flared up and I quit. I didn’t push it at all, was trying to be safe. It was my first run since Monday. My knee feels okay tonight which is a definite improvement over the pain from earlier in the week.

Also, I have an MRI at 8:30 tomorrow morning. It might not be necessary, but the insurance is covering it and I’d love to know for sure that nothing else besides the IT Band issue is going on. Plus, the doctor said there might be fluid on the knee that they can take out which would help me heal quicker. I don’t care what it takes, I just want to be fixed up and back on the road. Unfortunately, I won’t know what the results of the MRI mean until Monday because that’s when my next visit to the orthopedist is. I still can’t believe I’m heading back there again… I must be desperate.

Today, I was reminded why I hate going to the doctor’s. I arrived a little before my appointment time, filled out the monumental amount of paperwork required, then sat around in a crowded waiting room for almost an hour-an-a-half waiting to finally be called. What the fuck was the point of making an appointment?

First out is the x-ray tech. He takes me back and gets 6 x-rays of my knees. (Keep in mind this is before I’ve even seen a nurse or doctor or anything. Just, boom, let’s get some x-rays, that will be fun…)

After that, I get dropped off in an exam room where I get to wait some more for the nurse to finally come in and ask me all the questions and poke around on my knee. She actually seems to do a decent job, but it didn’t really matter; when the doctor came in, he didn’t consult her at all. Instead, he just asked me an abbreviated list of the same questions, glanced at the x-rays (a very quick glance, nothing more) and then had me walk down the hall barefoot. “IT Band,” he says. No shit. I knew that.

But there was a lot that I didn’t know. Like, Why does it still hurt even though I took a week off? What caused it? Was it the Nike Frees? When can I run again? What should I be doing to fix it? I managed to ask a few of these before he hurried off and he told me that it looked like the stretches and icing I’d been doing had helped and I was ready to ease back into running again. Hallelujah! He then gave me this local anti-inflammatory cream and recommended an MRI to see if there’s fluid in the knee that they could drain (apparently this could speed up recovery somehow, I didn’t get a full explanation.) I have to wait to see if my insurance approves the MRI before I schedule it.

Then I paid $665 for the pleasure of it all. My insurance is going to cover most of it (hopefully) but still…

Anyway, I got home and immediately threw on my running gear and headed out to the East River. I ran at a very easy 7:20/mile pace and just enjoyed the feeling of being out running again. I had a surprising amount of muscle soreness all over and was strangely winded right from the start, but I didn’t let that bother me. It was actually a pretty good run right up until the 3 mile mark (I was only planning 4). Then, the same damn pain came back. It was milder than before, so I decided to give it a little while and see if it went away but it didn’t. Instead it escalated and became severe. Trying to be smart, I quit running and walked home after 3.4 miles.

I stretched out, did the foam roller, iced, and all that fun stuff, now with the added joy of applying this nasty-smelling lube all over my knee. It’s still pretty sore, but I’m hoping for the best. I’ll take tomorrow off and then see how I feel Wednesday. Hopefully better. It felt so good to be out there running today. I want that feeling back.

~ Wishing I could run.

~ Bitching to anyone who will listen about how I can’t run.

~ Lots of pushups.

~ Working crazy hours. Finishing up old contracts, starting on new ones.

~ Drinking heavily. Especially this weekend. Good lord.

~ Stretching, icing, taking Advil.

~ Getting a new cat. Her name’s Lucy. She’s cool.

~ Trying to figure out if I have enough money to go sailing to the Bahamas with my friends next month.

~ Gaining weight.

~ Planning out next year’s race schedule. I’m thinking Boston, Pikes Peak, then the JFK 50 Miler.

I spent my weekend up in Vermont running my first ever long distance relay race. Our team, NYC Running Chicks and a Few Dudes, ran the (approximately) 200 mile course in 26 hours, 29 minutes, and 53 seconds for a 16th place overall finish.

As you can imagine, I’m more than a little tired out after all that. So, this will be a quick recap, even though I could go on for pages about all the amazing people I met and cool things that I saw.

My first leg came at 5:00 Saturday evening. I had 6.7 miles, much of which was up a big hill. I took off quickly, getting the first 3 miles all under a 6:30 pace. And then the pain hit. It was incredibly sudden and incredibly intense. I tried so hard to keep running, but I just couldn’t. I ended up walking down much of the giant hill that I had ran up, getting passed a couple times in the process. It was horrible. More than anything, I felt bad about letting the team down, especially since our times were much slower that first leg than what was anticipated and we were falling to the back of the pack. My overall pace was only 8:01/mile.

I hobbled back to the van, iced the knee, then kept stretching it out for the next few hours and worrying about how the next leg would go.

At 2:00 Sunday morning, I found out. It was amazing. I started quick, thinking that my knee would probably give out again and therefore trying to make up as much time as possible before it happened. But, the pain (although it was most definitely there) wasn’t crippling this time. I’m not sure why — maybe it was the massive amount of Advil I took or maybe it was that I was already warmed up — but, in mile 4, instead of collapsing like I had the first leg, I flew down a hill with a 6:02 mile. I managed to pass 3 teams over the 5.7 miles, and finished with a 6:32 overall pace.

I iced my knee again and kept stretching, but my knee was still very sore. One of my teammates asked me just before I started how I felt. “Not good,” was my answer. And it was certainly true. As soon as I started the third leg (around 10:00 AM), the pain escalated and I was forced to walk almost immediately. I did so for about a half mile, then started jogging and eventually running again. The pain never went away, but I was able to fight through it after that first walk and ended up finishing the 5.7 miles in a 7:04 pace.

After talking with some very knowledgeable runners up there about my knee, I’m almost certain that it is an IT Band issue. And, unfortunately, it seems to be a serious one. Now that the relay is over, I am in hardcore recovery mode. I bought The Stick and a foam roller today and am going to be using those, plus doing all those fancy IT Band stretches for a long time. Additionally, I’m going to be taking at least a couple weeks off running completely. The thought of not running for two weeks makes me very sad (not to mention apprehensive), but I want to get rid of this crap so that I can start my fall marathon training solid.

Of course, that puts a pretty big delay on the training and so Chicago is no longer going to be my goal race. I just don’t have the time to get into the shape that I want to before it. So, I’ll use it as a long training run as preparation for my sub-3 hour marathon in Philly. More on that later…

I’m sure some people (my mom included) think that I shouldn’t have run this weekend on a bad knee, but I don’t regret it at all. I had one of the best weekends I’ve had in a very long time, met a bunch of really cool people, and got to get out of the city and breathe real air for a bit. I’m already looking forward to next year’s relay(s) and the chance to run them injury free.

It was raining hard today. The type of rain that stings your face as it comes crashing down. The type of rain that keeps everyone inside. Well, almost everyone…

I was so excited to get back out there and get some miles in after my agonizingly long days off, the downpour wasn’t about to stop me. I had the biggest smile on my face even as the raindrops were hurtling themselves towards me like little missiles. It was amazing. I was running slow, both because I didn’t want to push it and because I was fighting a strong headwind, but I was running pain-free and everything seemed right with the world. I felt like laughing at the gods, saying, “This rain and wind is all you have for me? You can’t stop me.”

Maybe they heard my thoughts.

Just before I hit the 2.5 mile turnaround I felt a twinge. Oh no. That can’t be good. Within a half mile, I wasn’t able to continue running.

I tried stretching, walking a few paces, then running again a few times, but never made it more than a few steps. It was just too much pain. I was completely soaked, the wind was making me very cold, and I had no alternative but to walk the 2 miles back home. I felt completely helpless.

Shit.

So, I’m still packing up my bags and heading to Vermont early tomorrow morning, but I have no idea how this thing is gonna go. If it were an individual race, I would probably sit it out, but I feel obligated to try my best to live up to my commitment to the team. I’ll take some pain killers before my legs of the relay and just hope for the best.

Notes:

~ I didn’t run today. I’m not running tomorrow either. I’ll do an easy 4-5 miles on Thursday, then rest up again Friday. I really, really want to be able to run strong this weekend on my relay up in Vermont.

~ Thank you all for the great advice and links. I’m still really hoping that this is nothing serious and I don’t want to attach a name to it or self-diagnose or anything like that. But, after reading the stuff that was sent to me, I decided to take a very cautious approach and, if anything, err on the side of caution.

~ I’ve been using one of my Scottish flags as an ice pack. I have the other one on my wall in the loft, next to all my race bibs.

~ This weekend, I mailed in my lease renewal, extending my rental of this apartment to three years. Out of curiosity, I looked up records from the 3 years prior to moving here and found that, in that time, I lived at 6 different addresses in 4 different states. A slight change of pace…

~ My cousin sent me a case of wine from his vineyard. It is amazing stuff. I’m going through it way too quick. And, I need to remember to go to the store tomorrow and buy a thank you card.

~ I just signed a new contract and have been hard at work making a big cost analysis calculator report for a laboratory mice caging company. I must admit, I have thoroughly enjoyed constructing it so far. This may mean that I am somewhat of a nerd.

~ I bought basketball-style wristbands at Modell’s yesterday for no apparent reason. I wore them on both wrists all day today, also for no apparent reason. And I am wearing them now, for no apparent reason.

~ I read Lolita. It was boring. Didn’t live up to the hype at all.

~Now I’m reading The Orchid Thief. It’s interesting so far. More interesting than this, in fact, so I’m going to get back to it. Good night.

My knee has me really worried. More than worried, actually… Scared. I couldn’t even finish a 5 mile run today…

The pain that started during Wednesday’s track workout never really went away. I did hills on Thursday, but they were less than stellar. Then I did an easy 5 miles on Friday, but it was incredibly slow and painful. I started limping afterwards. I stayed in Friday night, slept a bunch, and was feeling a little better yesterday morning. I procrastinated quite a bit, but finally got out the door and headed down to Central Park for my 15 miler.

It was the most painful run I’ve ever endured. From the first step on, I was in agony. My plan had been to pick up the pace the last 3 miles, but by mile 12 it was all I could do to keep putting one step in front of the other. After an almost super-human effort, I somehow made it back to to the bottom of the park after that second lap, but had to quit at 14.96 miles. Seriously. I knew I was that close and I still couldn’t keep running. I sat on a bench for a long time before limping over to Jamba Juice and then onto the subway and back home. When I got back, I tried to stretch it out and soaked it, rested for a couple hours before heading to my buddy’s house.

It felt okay when I left here, but by the time I hit the Upper East Side, I was limping again. After a couple quick beers on his terrace, I headed back home (instead of going out to a party in Brooklyn as I was planning on) because I could barely walk. I took another hot bath, stretched it out some more, and then slept for over 12 hours.

I woke up this morning and it still hurt like hell. But, I thought that if I could push through the pain, it would be okay. I was poking and prodding my knee with my fingers without encountering any super-sore spots, so I figured it couldn’t be anything major and headed out the door for an easy run.

Right from the get-go, it was painful. It continued getting worse and by the time I hit the turnaround at 81st Street, it was starting to get unmanageable. And then my knee completely gave out and I almost hit the ground after the misstep. I realized then that I was doing more harm than good, and stopped running. I had to limp the entire two miles home because I didn’t have cash or my MetroCard on me.

And, that’s where I’m left now. I don’t know what to do… I can’t pinpoint the cause of the problem — It could be the change in the shoes, or the fact that I ran 6 days last week, or maybe something that was lingering from before and just now flared up, or maybe it was something that happened out on the track. Without knowing why the pain is there, I don’t really know what to address.

Tomorrow is a scheduled off day, so I’ll start there. And then, I’ll take this week very light. I have a big relay race up in Vermont this next weekend and definitely want to be able to run that as pain-free as possible. I’ll probably switch back to the Vomeros this week too. My hunch is that the shoes aren’t the issue, but I don’t know for sure and don’t want to take any chances before the relay. I might have to throw an extra rest day or two in there too.

Crap. This is really not where I wanted to be right now…