Gait Analysis.

Hey guys!  I feel like I'm finally getting back into the swing of things after a fun and busy Christmas weekend.

There are still huge piles of toys still in their boxes and a half-eaten pan of baklava on the kitchen counter, but hopefully after today our house will look a little bit less like a disaster area.

Last Monday, I went to see a physical therapist (who turned out not to be a gigolo after all), and he gave me tons of good information on my stress fracture and nailed down the contributing factors.  There are enough of them to warrant a full post on the subject tomorrow - so come back if you want to know how to  give yourself a femoral stress fracture of your very own.

After testing my strength and flexibility, measuring my legs, and doing some adjustments, he had me hop on the treadmill to videotape my stride.

I ran for a few minutes as he taped different angles... it was weird.  I couldn't relax and felt like I was swerving all over the treadmill because I was hyper-conscious that this guy was videotaping me from the waist down while I stumbled along in compression shorts.  Even worse, I had to hike my shirt up over my butt so he could better see my butt cheeks flopping around check my hips.

Anyway, I had to come back on Wednesday as there's a different guy in the office who is better at gait analysis.  We sat down in front of a big TV, and I got to watch my ass bounce up and down in HD at 1/10th normal speed.  It was like watching a train wreck, I couldn't look away.  He told me about a dozen things that were off - my knees come too close together when I run, I have too much upward motion, my knees are too straight when my foot hits the ground, my right hip is higher than my left... blah blah blah.

The fix?  Nothing.  It's like that Brian Regan joke where the eye doctor tells him he has one eye slightly higher than the other.  "It doesn't affect your vision or anything, I just thought you'd want to be self conscious for the rest of your life."

Do yourself a favor and watch this clip (and it's totally clean!  A first for my blog):

Yeah, he said my gait is good enough, but if I want, I can come in twice a week and run on a treadmill with a metronome while he charges me a million dollars an hour.  As nice as that sounds, I think I'll pass.

Have you ever had a gait analysis?


Do you feel self-conscious when people watch you run?

Week in Review/ Plan for the Week

 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We had a great weekend.

I'm going to try something new - on Mondays I'm going to recap my training from the previous week, and lay out my plan for the new week.

It might be really boring to those not super interested in the details of my training, but I'd like to start incorporating a little more goal setting into the fitness part of my life.  

And, I'll be asking you what your favorite workout was from the week before, so we can share ideas and inspiration and maybe even get a little motivation from each other.  Okay?  Okay.

Week in Review: 12/19-12/25

This week started out really well.... until Wednesday.  My 1.5 miles on the TM caused some aching in my femur, so I basically took the rest of the week off.  

• Monday:  Physical Therapy + walked .25, ran 1.25, walked .25
• Tuesday: Wall sits, squats.
• Wednesday:  Walked .25, ran 1.5, walked .25
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday:   Rest
• Saturday:   Rest
• Sunday: Walked/ran 3.1 (almost all walking), Jillian Michael's Yoga Meltdown.

Total Mileage: 9 miles
Total Workouts: 4
Favorite workout:  
I don't have many to choose from this week, but the yoga DVD was a challenging change of pace for me.  I think all of the balance exercises could translate into fewer running injuries (or is this my wishful thinking...?)  :)

Plan for the Week: 12/26-1/1

• Monday:  Rest
• Tuesday: .25 walk, 1.5 m, .25 walk
• Wednesday: Cycle, swim, or row
• Thursday: .25 walk, 1.5 m, .25 walk
• Friday:     Cycle, swim, or row
• Saturday:   Rest
• Sunday:   .5 walk, 1.6 m, .5 walk (Virtual 5k)

Most important goal for the week is to rest the femur if I'm feeling that aching again.

What was your favorite workout last week?

Swimming Can Suck It.

Well, the honeymoon is over.  All of those rosy thoughts that I shared earlier in the week about training for a triathlon?  Gone.

Kim early this week:  

"Ooh.. a triathlon!  How positively divine!  Where do I sign up?"

Kim now:

 "F**k this."

Why did I think I liked swimming?  I must have been drunk.  And remember how much my bits hurt with that one stupid spin class?

Yeah, I had a bad swim yesterday.  I felt so uncoordinated and whatever the opposite of hydrodynamic is.  So I'll give it another go today or tomorrow, but it really left me questioning my motivation.

Why do I want to do a triathlon?

Is it so I can have a body like this? 

Duh.  They just photoshopped her head onto my body.  Errr...

Is it so I can have bragging rights?

Kind of.

 Is it so I can get an awesome tattoo like this?

OK, maybe not, but it's pretty sweet.

Is it because maybe, just maybe, that I'm terrified that if I put all of my eggs in one basket (running) the next time I get injured I'll have to have myself committed?

Maybe.

Sigh.



To make me feel better, tell me something funny that happened to you this week.  See any funny websites/movies/mannequins?  Let me know.

Longer Days and Even Longer Nights

Happy Winter Solstice!  Hooray for being done with the days getting shorter... I am looking forward to the extra moments of sun we'll be getting every day from tomorrow on (until June, that is).

I'm pretty sure my kids have been trying to turn me into an alcoholic.  

They have been having a harder time going to sleep and have really started to fight the bedtime thing.  By the time they are finally asleep, I am so ready for a beer I can actually here them calling my name from the fridge.

So when I saw this book mentioned on Fit in Heels' facebook page, I went to YouTube, and found this gem:

Go the F**k to Sleep

 narrated by Samuel L. Jackson

Ok, ok, I wouldn't really read it to my kids, but it made me laugh this morning!

Got a nice little 1.5 mile run in this morning as well as some rowing and swimming - femur is still feeling strong!




What's on your workout agenda for the day?


Are you offended by this book or do you find it as funny as I do?

Ménage à Trois of Sports ... Indoors?

Seriously, if I was marketing a triathlon, I would totally christen my event the Ménage à Trois of Sports.  If you steal that, and get rich, you're frickin welcome you stealer.

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My two big fears about triathlons are the open water swimming and the biking.  I am not thrilled with the idea of someone swimming over the top of me and then having to swim through the pee they left in their wake.

 I'm also not thrilled with the idea of having to ride my 15 year old Schwinn mountain bike with a bunch of other people, trying not to careen wildly off a cliff, and riding through the pee-mist trailing behind all of the experienced triathletes.

For the record you dirty triathletes - I had NO IDEA you actually peed while riding the bike.  This opens up completely new pee horizons for me to explore, and I couldn't be more thrilled/disgusted/intrigued.


Yesterday, several of you mentioned indoor triathlons.... which is EXACTLY what I am thinking.

I'm gonna catch you!

I found out that several rec centers in Wisconsin put on indoor triathlons, and  I am pumped!  They all vary slightly in format and distance, but most of them are as follows:

10 minute swim

10 minute transition

20 minute spin bike

5 minute transition

15 minute treadmill run

This sounds like way less pressure than a traditional tri - semi-familiar equipment, no rushed transitions, lap swimming, no weather/waves to contend with.

Have you ever done an indoor triathlon?

It sounds pretty freaking fun, doesn't it?

I'll Never Know if I Don't Tri...

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Oh yeah.. these tri/try jokes are going to get old in a hurry.

..

I think I'll only do triathlons and relays from now on because I can "tri" to have a "relay" good time!  ha.  I kill myself.


Anyway!   The thought of a triathlon first floated its way into my noggin during one of my first swimming lessons.

It just seems like the natural progression of things:

• Runner gets injured
• Runner must become less obsessed with running to curb desire to fling oneself off of high building.
• Runner becomes more obsessed with "cross-training". 
• "Cross-training" becomes actual training.  
• Runner can run again, continues multi-sport training.
• Triathlon.

I'd like to interrupt this delightfully bullet-pointed list to point out that if this were the true natural progression of things, this spring I would surely be competing in a pentathlon where participants would swim for a while, spin for awhile, get roughed up by a ferocious female boot camp instructor, drink two vodka tonics, and run a 5k.


That would be an interesting statistic:  how many runners do their first triathlons as a direct result of injury.  I think it's probably 37%.*

So, I'm going to draw on the experience of all of you experienced triathletes, as well as all of the runners and anyone else who has an opinion ....





Have you ever done a triathlon?

If not, why not, and would you ever consider it?

If so, tell me in three words why I should tri!


* 64% of all statistics are made up.

ONE MILE!

Oh yeah baby.

With my neck muscles still sore from the most violent vomiting I've ever had (you're welcome for that visual), I rocked out a mile at a blistering 9:30 min/mile pace.  It was glorious.

This picture is totally not from today, but I wanted to convey my triumph
 without photo proof  that I haven't showered today.  Or brushed my hair.   Oops.

It was the first full mile I've run since August 13th.  And it feels good.

On Monday I have an appointment with some dude to do a gait analysis.

The problem is that I was so pissed at my doctor's office last time I talked to them that I didn't even pay attention to what the dude's name is, exactly where his office is, or even what his specialty is.  Is he a physical therapist?  A sports medicine doc?  A gigolo?  I have no idea.

My appointment is at 7:00am, so I'll be wandering around the hospital bright and early knocking on doors and tugging on candy stripers' aprons hoping someone can help me find my appointment.

I am very excited to get an evaluation and start to address some of the bio-mechanical issues behind the stress fracture so I never, ever have to go through this junk again.

I also have some exciting news about something I may dive into... I'll be posting about it starting Monday!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!