Foam Roller is Foam with a Capital "FU"

Last year for Christmas, Jody bought me one of those message rollers. This one has three little spiky-covered balls. It looks a bit diabolical but thought it worked pretty well. It was a great toy for sitting in the recliner on Sunday and massaging the calves, quads, and hamstrings while watching football.

Back in April, I bought a new pair of running shoes. During this visit, I told the salesman that I was preparing to run a half marathon (the Door County half). After settling on a pair of shoes that felt pretty good, he asked me if I owned a foam roller. I said I had, but did not own one.

My foam roller.

I had read about foam rollers. Do not let the name be misleading. Although they are "foam" most of them are a hard foam that offers little comfort to the body; however they come highly recommended. I'll be honest, I was always a bit skeptical.

The idea behind the foam roller is that it offers a deep massage to leg and other muscles. It operates under your own weight. You use it be simply rolling an area, such as your calf or hamstring, back and forth over the device.

But there is a catch ... they hurt like !@#%!

After buying the roller, I used it a couple times but the discomfort was not fun. So, it sat on the floor by my weight set, untouched. I would look at it now and then and think about using it, but was never motivated enough to get on the floor and suffer through the discomfort that it brings.

Then I started to see a chiropractor. I initially visited her because my right hip had been causing me some discomfort since Door County and Jody was tired of me talking about it. A about a week after starting my visits, my left leg (from my knee down to my shin) started to bother me. I mentioned this to my chiropractor. She adjusted my knee once but said that it may be my IT Band that was the nemesis. The best way to alleviate this discomfort was by using the foam rolling. Ugh!

Rolling the IT Band.

There are way too many images of using the foam roller with smiles on their faces! These smiles are lies! All lies!

After several foam rolling sessions (usually before I go to bed), I worked on my left IT Band. Maybe it is just coincidence, but the discomfort in my left leg has since disappeared and not returned, even after several long runs and the Madison mini-marathon.

My next "holy @#$^@" moment with the foam roller came after the Madison race. While I felt strong after the run, soon after I stopped, both of my achilles started to both me. They stiffened up and hurt like they have never hurt before. I was a bit worried after Madison because of the level of discomfort.

After the race, before I went to bed that Saturday night, I decided to use the foam roller and give my achilles some extra love and attention. I started by trying to roll my achilles just above my heal. This did not seem to do anything. So I shifted a little higher and focused on the area between my heal and my calf. Holy crap! I could feel the tightness in both legs but it was not a horrible pain.

After rolling my hamstrings, quads, and shoulders, I stood up. To my amazement, my achilles felt so much better. My right achilles was still stiff and sore but my left one felt almost normal again! The next morning, I rolled my achilles again and the building stiffness dissipated.

Long story short, I was a skeptic when it came to the foam roller. I did not like the discomfort it brought to my body. However, after the relief it provided to my achilles and left leg, I'm convinced that foam rolling will be part of my evening routine as Chicago approaches.

Training Update
I continue to lose weight. Over the course of the past two weeks, I have shed about 3 pounds. Also, today (Sunday), I set a new distance PR by running 18 miles.

Jody joined me for the first four miles, which was awesome! Cooler temperatures and some fog allowed me to feel comfortable for most of the run. For the first 13.5 miles I was doing fine, but I drank too much water when I stopped at a fountain to refill and stomach cramps caused me to walk for about a half mile. I was then able to shuffle my feet to the very end. I spent the rest of the day immobile in my recliner. Next week, I run 20 miles!

Madison Mini-Marathon

Head's up! This post violates my 500 word limit rule, but it is for a good cause. On Saturday, I completed the Madison mini-marathon (Jody ran the 5K). This post reviews how I prepared for it during the prior week and how I ran the race.

Pre-Race Mentality
Usually, I would be excited and anxious about running a half, but there was something weird about this one. Maybe it is the fact that school starts in a couple weeks and I am not even close to ready with the two courses I am teaching. Maybe it is also the fact that the half was not the be-all-end-all of my training, it was simply a waypoint for Chicago. It's humbling to think that in the coming weeks, I am scheduled for long runs of 18 and 20 miles.

Instead of trying to run this half as fast as I could and set a new PR (personal record) for my half-marathon time, I approached this race as a way for me to prepare for Chicago, from what I ate leading up to the event to how I paced myself during the race.

Monday-Wednesday
Business as usual during these days. I did not alter my diet or running plan. For this week, I rested on Monday (after my 16 mile Sunday run). On Tuesday, I ran a hard/fast 4 miles in the pouring rain (it felt good). After my run, I hoped in my car and drove 7 hours to Akron, OH.

Wednesday was spent in Cleveland, OH, as I had several meetings prior to the start of the Society of American Archivist (SAA) Conference. I did not run on Wednesday morning. Truth be told, I was exhausted from driving on Tuesday and I'm not the biggest fan of running in areas that are foreign to me.

Diet control when you are on the road is also difficult, but I did my best. Alas, this is sometimes easier said than done unless you pack all your meals, which I did not. What else is there to do when you are cruising along the IN-OH turnpike but eat out of a bag and drink some caffeine to keep you awake? Also, the rest stop options in IN are not that great: McDonald's, Hardees, and some Burrito place.

Thursday
I'm in Cleveland. I thought about running, but the hotel bed was very comfortable and it was raining outside, so I opted to rest again on Thursday. Today, however, I do start preparing for my race.

Everyone has heard of the "need" to carb-load before a long run, half-, or full-marathon. Often this can be interpreted as a big carb meal the night before. In addition to this meal, I start adding carbs to my diet a couple days before the race. Nothing too wild and crazy, but I do not shy away from extra breads. For example, for breakfast on Thursday, I had the buffet at the hotel, which involved a few scrambled eggs, some diced potatoes, a few slices of bacon, and a couple slices of French Toast. During my drive back to Milwaukee, I had a plain white bagel that I had brought with me on Tuesday, followed by a blueberry muffin and another plain white bagel, both of which I bought at a rest stop.

Friday
Usually, I do not run the day before a race. I like to rest and stay off my feet as much as possible. Today was different because I had not run in a few days. This morning, I did a short 3-mile jog just to loosen up the legs and get my head back into it. The run felt good.

Friday morning run before the half-marathon.

Normally, for breakfast, I would just have a bowl of cereal (or some oatmeal) with some blueberries, but today I switched it up to three scrambled eggs, an English muffin, and a banana. A couple hours later, I had some graham crackers; and for lunch, I had a tortellini pasta salad. I ate some more graham crackers and a cup of yogurt in the afternoon before leaving for Madison. The name of the game is to stockpile carbs and proteins before the race ... and drink plenty of water.

The Night Before
The night before a long run or race, I try to eat a healthy dose of protein and carbs. Jody and I lucked out and found a great Italian restaurant near our hotel room: Osteria Papavero. I had a great dish of tortellini stuffed with cheese and topped with smoked salmon and diced zucchini. A perfect pre-run meal.

Saturday (Race Day)
Until a few weeks ago, the morning of a long run I would usually eat a half of cup of oatmeal, with a tablespoon of brown sugar, and a few blueberries, craisins, or a banana. The kicker is, I would have to eat at least 2 hours before I ran or else I would experience stomach cramps. If I waited, I was fine, but if I ran too soon after eating, I was miserable and would have nasty side stitches.

A couple weeks ago, I planned on running at 5:30 AM. You do the math for what time I needed to wake up if I wanted to have oatmeal for breakfast (hint: some people have not gone to bed yet). No way was this going to happen, so I changed my pre-long-run breakfast by eating a plain bagel with some peanut butter.

The cool thing about this breakfast is that I only have to wait for an hour before I hit the pavement. Also, this is a perfect meal for when I am on the road, such as in Madison or Chicago. Bring the bag of bagels, the jar of peanut butter, and a knife, and I am good to go.

Soon after waking up at 5 AM (the race started at 7 AM and we planned to leave the hotel room a bit after 6 AM), I ate my plain bagel with some peanut butter. I also had a banana and drank some water before we heading towards the starting lines (the half and 5K started at the same time but at two different locations).

The Race

In the corral, waiting for the start. About 10 minutes after I took this picture, it would be a sea of runners.

My first thoughts after the gun went off at 7 AM: "I probably should have peed before the race started." But one of the most frustrating things about races are the long lines at the port-a-potties. I decided that because this was not going to be too serious of a run for me that I could stop at one of the port-a-potties along the route (there were at least two at every water station that occurred about 1.5 miles). Luckily, my bladder held for all 13 miles and I did not have to stop (I overheard one runner saying that her stop cost her 8 minutes).

My goal for this race was to focus on my pacing. If you recall, back in early May, I "crashed" during the Door County Half-Marathon because I went out too fast and because I lacked sufficient fuel in my system. I wanted to avoid a repeat of this incident. To do this, I planned to run the first few miles at about a 10:40 min/mile pace. After about mile 4, I would gradually increase my pace and see how close to a 10:00 min/mile pace I could reach by the end. Here is what happened:

Madison Mini-Marathon, mile splits and route. GAP is the Grade Adjusted Pace, which "estimates an equivalent pace when running on flat land, allowing the runner to compare hilly and flat runs more easily. Because running uphill requires extra effort, the Grade Adjusted Pace will be faster than the actual pace run. When running downhill, the Grade Adjusted Pace will be slower than the actual pace."

Yes! I succeeded in my plan!

What was awesome about the race was that my second half was much faster than my first half (what is called negative splits) and my last three miles were the fastest three miles of the run. Also, I felt extremely strong during the whole race, in part, attributed to my pacing, and in part do to my fuel.

When I run a long-run, I run with a fuel belt that has two small water bottles and one to two gels. Gels are those energy things that some people say taste like cardboard and are nasty to eat. They are usually high doses of sugar, carbs, and in some cases, salt. I have found a few flavors that I like and do not mind eating them when out for a run over 10 miles. They do make a difference, especially if they are taken before one runs out of gas.

Gels.

In Door County, I took my one and only gel at about the 7 mile mark. It turns out, that I needed another at the 10 or 11 mile mark. For Madison, I choose to have one at the 6 mile mark and was prepared to take another at the 10 mile mark, but I never took the second one. The reason for this being that I felt really good with just one in my system. By the time I hit mile 10, I was going strong and by mile 11 it was too late for any gel to do me any good (they take about 1-2 miles to kick in).

Besides the gel that I took, I only drank water during the race. Most races offer Gatorade and water, and Madison was no exception. I have never practiced running with Gatorade. I have run with a small squirt of Propel (made by Gatorade but with a slightly different formula) in one of my water bottles, but this is different, so I skip the Gatorade tables. Instead, I grabbed water at 4 of the 7 stations. This was enough to keep me going without cramping or feeling like I was depleted.

My official race stats:

I'm too lazy to photoshop my name and replace with "Average Runner."

While I did not set any PRs, I was very pleased with the outcome.

I paced myself extremely well and, once again, felt strong throughout the entire run. I cannot stress this sensation enough. Unlike Door County, at Madison, I never felt like I was going to crash. In fact, with Madison, about a half mile before the finish line, there was a short, but rather steep hill. A hill that more than one runner (myself included) cursed at upon encountering. With a grimaced face, I motored up this hill as many runners slowed to a walk.

What's even better is that my grimace turned to a smile when I saw Jody at the top waiting for me. Once I reached her, she ran with me for a short time before turning aside and letting me sprint to the finish line. What a great experience!

Post-race picture with Jody.

Diet is "Die" with a 'T'

This is going to be a short post. This morning, I woke up at 4 AM so I could eat and be out the door by 5:30 AM for a 16-mile run. This is the furthest I have ever run and I am exhausted and will be lucky to see 9 PM tonight.

Anyway, I digress... Last week, I talked about how running has helped me lose weight. To be honest, I thought running would be enough where I would not have to worry about my diet and continue to cave to the sweet tooth goddess.

A few weeks ago, after a long run, I made the decision that I could benefit from losing 5-10 more pounds. It's simple logic: that's 5-10 pounds less that I have to carry 26.2 miles. After all, how hard can it be to lose another 5-10 pounds when I've lost about 30 in the past year? Answer: Very!

My problem is, I don't like to count calories. Truth be told, I suck at math and do not have the patience to keep track of everything I eat in a day. The best I can do is take a mental note about what I eat and try to minimize the carbs and sugars.

I have eliminated sandwiches for lunch, opting for a spinach salad with some fruit and feta. Not bad, but damn do I miss a good roast beef sandwich for lunch.

As I mentioned last week, my biggest vice are the sweets. In fact, during a recent visit to Milwaukee, my parents did me no favors by buying a box of ice cream cones. Maybe, with some luck, I will not hear them taunting me from the freezing.

Jody and I try to eat healthy for dinner. Yet, it is not uncommon to have a small pizza from the local grocery store or something with Italian sausage once every couple weeks. To our credit, we eat out only once every couple weeks, if that.

This is, however, the extent to my "diet." Maybe with some self-discipline, portion control, and staying away from the sweets, I will reach my goal. Obviously, I will continue running and adding miles each week, so the calories will burn (I torched 2700 of them on my 16-mile run this morning), but Chicago will happen regardless of what I weigh.

Next week, I will talk about what I eat before, during, after my long runs. Until then, I try to enjoy some wonderful rice cakes...

Food

When I arrived in Milwaukee just over two years ago, I had a growing waistline. I was drinking too many chai lattes from Starbucks and eating too many Mr. Goodbars as I pushed to finish my dissertation. Hell, I maintained my Starbucks gold status for two solid years! That's not something to brag about. The sugar caught up with me ... err ... stayed with me.

Not helping matters, Jody and I each have a nasty sweet tooth that is nearly impossible to tame. Over the winter, we love to have cinnamon rolls from City Market or a piece of cheese cake from Sendik's. Our summer vices are ice cream sandwiches and frozen yogurt (with too many toppings). I also found the devil isle in Sendik's with containers of chocolate covered nuts and caramel pralines ... OMG!

In October 2013, a doctor's visit put me close to 230 pounds, which is about 40-50 pounds overweight for my age and height. My blood pressure was on the high side, and my cholesterol, along with other numbers, were trending up.

Prior to school starting in September of that year, Jody and I went to Kohl's because I needed a new pair of jeans. I had to buy a pair with a 38 waistline. Some of you may scoff at this, but since my days as an undergraduate, I have been a 36. It was a humbling experience. (I know, it's a rough life growing up with a insanely active metabolism.)

Then we went to Peru the next summer and that picture resulted in me trying to reverse engineer my waistline.

So I ran. According to the data I have in MapMyRun, from July 1, 2014 - July 31, 2015, I have logged approximately 150 runs that equates to about 700 miles. This is an average of 4.65 miles per run. On average, the runs have lasted about 41 minutes. My longest run was 14.66 miles and lasted just over 2.5 hours. Note: Last weekend, I surpassed this distance when I ran 15.01 miles (and I will eclipse the mark again with runs of 16, 18, and 20 in the coming weeks), which lasted 2 hours and 59 minutes. One other interesting statistic, on average, I burned just over 600 calories per run.

As a result, I have lost about 30 pounds. I'm down to about 190 and I have lost over 3 inches along my waist. I am happy to announce that I have returned to my 36s. In October, I will have the doctor check my vitals, but all indications are that they are trending in the right direction.

Obviously, part of this transformation, if you want to call it that, is simply the running. If you exercise, you will shed pounds and transform the fat into muscle. (I could talk here about needing to exercise properly, that is, getting the heart rate up and making every workout count, but that is a post for another day.)

The other part is the diet. I never thought I would focus on what I eat. I would just watch it as I ate it. However, I couldn't tell you the last time I had a Mr. Goodbar. I am also struggling to recall the last time I had a chai latte. I'm proud to say that my Starbuck's gold status has expired. All this said, there is still more to do.

In next week's post, I'll talk about why I need/want to lose another 5-10 pounds before Chicago and how this has become one of the biggest challenges yet.

Running in July

Last week, I posted about a running experience I had in February. This week, I thought it would be appropriate for this post to write about my running experiences (so far) during the summer.

For the most part, I enjoy running on a summer morning. I like the calm atmosphere. I like hearing the chirping birds. I like how the streets are not filled with traffic. I like how people who are out, walking their dogs, jogging, or walking, seem friendlier than those people who appear later in the day.

However, for all the good things about running on a summer's morning, the blazing sun and humid temperatures can quickly turn a tranquil sensation into a frustrating experience.

Several Sunday's ago, I was scheduled to run 9 miles. This was the first time I had ever run in "hot" weather. I don't know how hot it was ... it couldn't have more than 82 degrees by the time I hit mile 4. But it was a brutal experience. I ran 6.4 before my I could shuffle my feet no more.

I then walked for a half mile before trying to jog the rest of the way. I lasted another mile before walking home.

Part of the problem was that I thought it would be a quick 9 miles and did not take any water (dumb idea). I struggled mentally too. I knew the last few miles were going to be completely exposed to the sun. I just kept thinking how miserable I was going to be for the final 30 minutes. The negative thoughts got the better of me.

Everything I have read about running in the heat says it takes time for the body to adjust ... and to slow the f@!#$% down! This makes perfect sense if we keep in mind the 20 degree rule. I can run when it is -22 F out because after the first mile, it feels closer to 0 F. But when it is 80 degrees out ... well, the body thinks it is closer to 100. Not fun!

For my long runs, I have a water belt with two 10.5 ounce bottles. For my shorter runs, I carry a small water bottle that holds about 12 ounces.

This past Sunday, I ran 15 miles. It was warmer than expected and humid, but it one of my better long runs this summer. There were a couple reasons for this. First, I planned my route so I maximize my time running in neighborhoods where the streets are lined with trees and there was more shade (and a few sprinklers). Second, instead of one big loop, I ran two loops so I could stop by a water fountain at a local park. Third, I was not too worried about my pace.

Jody, the girlfriend, joined me for the first 3.5 miles, which was awesome! We maintained a nice pace that set the tone for the rest of the run. Overall, the changes paid off. I felt stronger and more at ease. I still hit a wall at the 12.4 mile mark and had to walk for about .5 miles, but with sun refusing to hide behind clouds, I thought I did alright.

Fortunately, Chicago will occur in October, with a higher chance of cooler temperatures, but one cannot help but think back to 2007 when temperatures soared and chaos ensued. Overall, my goal is to be smart and run within my limit. I'm not not out to set any records. I'm out to prove that I can do it and finish with an exhausted smile on my face.