Thank You...

   The timing couldn't have been more prolific. Who would've thought the day after my 41st birthday that my ability to run would just up and disappear? This week was supposed to be a nice end of summer vacation for my family and me. Unfortunately it's been nothing but an emotional roller coaster. There's many more doctor's appointments and questions to be asked.

   What do I know? After getting a MRI yesterday it appears that my spinal column has narrowed and I have a herniated or protruding disc (they mean the same thing) in my lumbar region (lower back). All of this is causing lower back pain and numbness in my right leg. It's practically impossible to stand or walk for any period of time. 

   I can't stand, I can't walk I can't do anything other than think about this right now. So, I needed to do something. So I did something stupid and researched my injury on the internet. I know, I know, never to do this! I found a lot of information that was difficult to interpret and disheartening to read. Some were success stories. Some were so tragic they left me in tears. 

     To answer one question that's surely on everyone's mind, yes my running streak ended yesterday at 609 days and 2,762 miles. I made the extremely difficult decision last night to stop rather than risk doing even more damage. As with anything, the information out there on continuing running with this type of injury is contradictory. Some professionals recommended not doing it, others said that it wouldn't cause anymore damage. Until I get my professional diagnosis and speak with my new orthopedic spine surgeon this Friday I thought it was best to call it quits. The pain was so intense last night that it was causing me to see stars and almost pass out every time I tried to walk. It was time to let it go. Out of all of my running related achievements those past 609 days are one of my greatest. I started out just wanting to last 366 days and came out the other end with almost double that number changed forever. It was such an amazing experience that taught me I didn't know as much about running as I once thought I did. I met some truly amazing people who continue to run on into the streaking future making my 609 days look like chump change. I learned to blog, video podcast and was shocked to find that so many people followed my journey. My wife thought I was a loveable nut, my son thought I was a superhero and my friends didn't bring the topic up because they got sick of me rambling on and on about it. I ran through sweltering heat and humidity, heavy rainfall, snow and sleet. I ran after long days of work, during and after a surprise birthday party, on holidays and special occasions. If there's one thing that I can say about it all it's that anyone who wants to get to know themselves better should give it a try. It wasn't hard when you took it day by day. Just a mile a day was the admission price to come to know myself on a deeper level, see some amazing scenery and wildlife, push my limits past perceived boundaries. It was truly a gift to experience a beautiful type of quiet that can only be found in complete darkness at 11:50 PM EST, in the brilliant rays of Christmas morning dawn while the world still sleeps and in the stillness of the trail when it's only you and a grinning puppy amidst the trees. There are thing that I can not put into words about this special time in my life. Went out to dinner last night with the family to celebrate the end of an amazing era. 

   To answer the other big question, yes I've pulled out of all of my scheduled races for the year. No Rochester Marathon, Can 50K or Mendon 50K. If you think that signing up for your first ultra-marathon is difficult, try withdrawing from it. It really hurts the wallet as well. This will be the first year that I haven't run a marathon since 2005. So sad. Unfortunately the blog will be ending as well. I'll still keep the site up. But there's little to write or tape when you're not training to go five miles more.

   You've all been so encouraging and I wouldn't of gotten this far without your love and support. I'm not writing this for your pity. I'm just letting some friends know that I'm human. I'm not sure what the future is going to hold. I pray that it involves running somehow. I've gotten so much from it. It's part of who I am. Sometimes though, I have a tendency to overdo things in my life. Maybe that's what happened in this case. Or maybe it was only a matter of time. Balance is something that continues to elude me in my life. Please understand that the next few months are going to be a difficult transition for me to make. I'm not giving up. Not by a long shot. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an active guy. I'm going to get some good information on Friday and focus my energies on overcoming this particular challenge. I will keep everyone up to date through Facebook as best I can.

   I've always said that living life means taking risks. Without risking anything in your life, you're just existing. I've never been the kind of guy to sit around and watch the day go idly by. Running has done a lot for me and my life. Helped me to more fully experience my world. At times it's been a blessing. At others it's caused unneeded stress and anguish. But I'd like to think it's done more good than bad. From what I can understand coming back from an injury like this is different from person to person. There is no standard recovery time. I don't think that it's the nail in my coffin that I'm dreading it is. But if it is, then I can look back on everything and smile with a sense of satisfaction. You can't run for 12 years and log over 27,665 miles and not feel like you got somewhere.

   As I think back to the beginning I think of the person who started it all. I don't rarely talk about my wife. She's a private woman. Not the kind to put her stuff out there. She's been my biggest supporter and sometimes hater of my running career. 12 years ago she gave me the encouragement to stop dreaming and start doing. Since that first 5K I haven't looked back. I've eclipsed what she thought, what I thought, what anyone thought a formerly obese, non-athletic little kid could ever do. She's the most amazing social worker that I know who's helped countless people and saved numerous lives during the time that I've known her. She's been my rock through all of this and yet again, she's determined to make this another one of my success stories.

 My family, my friends, thank you for everything you have done. Thank you for believing in me when I didn't myself. This is not the end. Thank you for riding that lightning with me...

              

Week Ten-Tour De Pain Race Review & Maybe The End

   Several years ago I heard about a local race series called the Tour De Pain. After some research it looks like the Tour isn't unique to my side of town. Tour De Pains are run across the US with varying race distances. The one thing they all have in common is that the races are held one after the other and runners are scored cumulatively based on all of their finishing times. Pure insanity that I always wanted to give a try but it never worked out. 

   My town's Tour was sponsored by a local running club called the Genesee Valley Harriers and consisted of a 5K race, mile race and 400 meter sprint run in the Cobbs Hill Reservoir area. Very hilly, very challenging. Earlier in the month we signed my son up for their weekly children's cross-country series of races consisting of a 400 meter, half-mile and full mile races. After the children's series an adult 5K was also run each week. He had a blast the entire month and learned two important things: that running distance requires practice and that sprinting isn't in our family's genetic makeup. The Tour was run on the final Wednesday night after the children's race series. I figured that since I was already going to be there, why not finally scratch this one off the bucket list? I had no excuse. 

   I've been training for my ultras all summer. So I didn't do anything special to prepare earlier in the week other than taking it easy with regards to speed work and resting my legs as much as possible. I was feeling good. But my forte is typically longer distances. So I wasn't planning on breaking any speed barriers. Ry ran the half-mile race that night and had his best race of the month. It was hard watching him struggle through the four weeks. But in the end he was as proud of himself as we were of his four finisher ribbons. It was time for the Tour.

   I've run a lot of races in my day and this was by far the most poorly organized. Which surprised me a lot because the Harriers are a well respected running club with lots of experience within their ranks. The 5K was the first race run. I tried to look at a hastily drawn map on a dry erase board but couldn't make heads or tails of the course. Before the race started an announcer asked for a sign of hands who was unfamiliar with the course before. There was only a handful of us who raised our hands. After a brief, vague description of where to run and before anyone could ask anything the race started. The hills were devastating but I didn't do half bad considering all the hill training I've done all summer. The course was very poorly marked and it was all I could do to keep some of the faster runners in sight so I didn't get lost. I managed a very good 5K time but no PR. I felt lucky that I didn't get lost. The mile was run about ten minutes later. Shorter distance so it was easier to figure out where the hell to run. I was dead tired and the hills were again a killer. But I surprisingly managed to clock a PR for that one. The 400 meter was run again about ten minutes after that. Being even more tired faced with more hills meant that there weren't any surprises there. Overall the races were run so haphazardly. I only knew my finish times because I recorded them with my Garmin. I won't be running the Tour again anytime soon. It was good to scratch it off the list but never again.

   This is when things got interesting. The following day I was really sore. So I decided to take it easy and do my cross-training and an easy mile. Challenging but nothing too crazy. It was my birthday too. Who wants to kill themselves on their birthday? The next day I knew that something had gone really wrong. All summer long I've been fighting off hamstring pain and tight hip muscles. Apparently the hills during the race mixed with some race pace level running proved disastrous. I was unable to stand due to extreme right hip pain that radiated down my thigh making my shin and foot numb. It's one of the most severe running related injuries I think I've ever had. 

   Since last Thursday I've only managed a painful mile a day to keep the running streak alive. Running being a very relative term. If my treadmill didn't have side rails I would've died three days ago. I've tried ice, heat, OTC pain revilers, yoga, using my foam roller and a tennis ball. I've even started a five day burst of steroid. Nothing has touched it. After listening to my wife I went to an urgent care center today to talk to a doctor and get some x-rays. On the good side, nothing appears to be broken and if I can stand it, continue to keep my streak going. Running won't do me any more harm but it may continue to aggravate the pain. On the bad side the doctor thinks that my lower lumbar vertebrae are compressing a spinal nerve. I'll be scheduling an appointment with a spinal doctor tomorrow. On an interesting note the doctor thought it was really cool to see that I have six instead of the normal five lumbar vertebrae. Apparently it's a very rare but harmless genetic trait. Still planning on trying to get in to see my chiropractor this week too. He's going to be pissed at me. 

   According to the doctor today this could get better in three to four weeks. That really means a lot of different things. First, there's no way I can work without being able to walk or stand. Being who I am, I'm going to go crazy being out of work or being on light duty. This is going to stink. Second, I may not be able to run my 2013 deferred Rochester marathon in 40 days. I probably could do it in my sleep. I won't be able to defer it another year which means I'll be out $70. But should I even try? Third, I can't miss four weeks of ultra training time. I'm going to check tomorrow to see if I can withdraw from the Canandiagua 50K without penalty. My back up race is the Mendon 50K three weeks later. Which I could maybe muddle through if I got better in a month's time frame. That's a big maybe for the farthest I've ever gone on an unfamiliar course. Fourth, after 609 days what do I have to prove? Why am I doing this crazy non-stop running streak thing anyways? I'm 243 days over my original goal of 366 days. Why continue?

   Over the last 12 years of my life I've wrapped an extremely large portion of who with running. It's where I'm from, who I am and where I'm going. I know this isn't the end. I've been around long enough to realize that runners who say they don't get injuries are liars, period. Pain and suffering are part of the deal. But being unable to even stand or walk far for the past three days has been a humbling experience. 

   Lots of things to to think about during the coming weeks. Lots of decisions to make. Lots of research to do. I've always said that the trick in becoming a better runner is going to the edge of breaking and then hitting the break a little. I accidentally hit the gas instead. I'll keep the blog going on a weekly basis. With all this down time I'll have lots of time to write more to bore you with. Who knows? You may even be subjected to a whole other year's more worth of my ultra nonsense?

   My friends, hope you are well, have your foot over the brake pedal, but still riding that lightning...

Week Nine-Keeping It Simple

   Running in and of itself is a simple activity. All that's required is a pair of running sneakers, a shirt and a pair of shorts. All that you have to do is put one foot in front of the other. There's no rules on how fast you should go or how far. Everything's up to you. The simplicity of it all is one of the biggest reasons why I like the sport so much. 

   As with anything though, you can make running as complex as you want too. There's so many different types of running sneakers, clothing and gear to choose from that it'll make your wallet catch fire. There's so many different races to choose from that it's as exhausting as running a hill workout to think about them all. To add to the confusion there's thousands of different viewpoints on training, racing and how to treat injuries.

   Through the years I've worn about every type of running clothing, tried many different types of shoes and spent a small fortune on running related tech. I've tinkered with my training and raced all distances up to the ultra. I've also self-treated myself, been evaluated by my doctor and seen a chiropractor for my running related injuries. I'm always open to trying new things and I've done a great job of making running much more complex than it needs to be.

   For the past two years I've been suffering through nagging hamstring issues. It almost sidelined me last year completely. Just when I thought I had those issues licked I was delighted to discover that the ache didn't go away, it just moved into my hips. So for much of this training season I've been trying everything that I could to ease that hip pain. Extra stretching, medication and reductions in training were the name of the game. Up until this week I was starting to get concerned that this was going to shatter my hopes of running my ultras planned for the Fall. I was frustrated and tired of this pain in the butt, literally! I decided to give up and try something new, going back to basics and keeping it simple.

   On one hand it's amusing to realize that a tennis ball and a bag of ice can solve an issue that's been bugging you for so long. But on the other hand it's frustrating to think that I was so stubborn that I wasn't willing to try something so inexpensive, so not technological. Amazing! Hopefully with a little more self-treatment and time my hip pain won't be a problem any more.

   This week wasn't bad at all. The worst thing was jumping back into cross-training after a two and a half week hiatus. Good lord it's incredible how sore you can get after starting up again! I surprised myself with a decent 16 mile long run despite being so sore and wading through a torrential downpour while the sun was shining. I tried to surge every other mile and it wasn't pretty, but it worked. Good to know all of this hard training is paying off!

   Hope your week was as productive! Have a great upcoming week and ride that lightning my friends...  

Week Seven & Eight-Passing It On

   

   We've always taken a relaxed attitude with regards to finding activities to occupy my son's free time. Especially during the dog days of summer. Over the years we've tried various sports. But unless he has any kind of natural talent for it, he gets frustrated and gives up. We've done a variety of summer camps too. He loves the more intellectual ones compared to the more active ones. He's a voracious reader. Which I think is absolutely great for his age. But doesn't do a lot for his fitness. He refuses to learn how to ride his bike because of the lack of children to cruise around our neighborhood with. Not that we'd let him out of our sight even if he did. It seems like we're always trying to get him to get up and do SOMETHING! We don't care what he does. Just as long as he's doing something other than play video games and watch television. 

   About two years ago he expressed an interest in running with me. Since then we've done it on and off again. With my crazy schedule it's been anything but consistent. Throw in me trying to train for races and it sometimes doesn't happen at all.

   Two weeks ago I saw that a local running club is sponsoring a children's cross-country race series every Wednesday night for the entire month of August. For a small fee kids can race in the 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile and mile distances. Every finisher gets a ribbon and a popsicle. They also get a snazzy t-shirt promoting trail running. After a little discussion he decided that he wanted to do it. Of course I was thrilled! This was going to force us to make time for running together.

   The first Wednesday came before you know it. Funny how it seemed so easy for him to say yes earlier in the week. But when the time came to leave for the races there was a little grumbling. Initially I was just going to watch and cheer him from the sidelines. But he wanted me to run each race with him. Which I didn't mind doing one bit! Lining up for the 1/4 mile start he decided that he was going to try to run all three races. The quarter mile went quickly and it was amazing to run beside him as usual. My only complaint was that the kid races were run before an adult 5K. Which meant he was going to be in for a surprise. His three races were going to be run immediately one after the other. We barely finished the first race when they lined up for the 1/2 mile. Another great race but we had to stop briefly for him walk and catch his breath. I could tell he was exhausted at the end. But he was adamant about trying the mile too. The mile turned out to be a disaster and he got his first official DNF. He was rightfully upset. After some talking we decided that spending the morning running around at his summer camp, not having enough to eat before the race and the short rest time between races didn't help him much. He was the only kid that I saw to attempt all three races. I was proud of him for trying his best. I had an self imposed easy training week. Mostly due to cutting out my cross-training to give the steroid I was on a chance to reduce some of the inflammation I'd been suffering from in my right shoulder and hips. It felt nice to run for fun with him. The popsicle tasted good and the finisher ribbon was hung on the medal rack.

   This Wednesday we had a better game plan. He ate before the race and tried to rest his legs as much as he could in the morning. He also decided that he was going to run the 1/4 mile and mile races. He'd sit out the half mile to rest. The 1/4 mile went well and he was able to run the whole distance. But disaster struck again with the mile handing him another DNF. As we headed in towards the finish line he got that look on his face that I know all too well. We walked behind the timing truck and the inevitable tears started to flow. It was a good learning lesson. Not everyone runs because it's hard and takes practice. But we still won the day with a finisher ribbon for the 1/4 mile and a popsicle. I couldn't of been prouder again. His determination is awe inspiring.

   The past two weeks were disappointing for me at first. My perfect attendance with my training was broken, my injuries started to worry me and my lack of free time finally caught up with me. But after watching my son run I was reminded of how much running is similar to life. It doesn't always go as planned. You need to be flexible and gentle with yourself. Most importantly, you shouldn't let a few bad workouts or extra time off get inside your head. Interesting how my son is teaching me new things. The streak is still alive, the ultra training will continue. I tried some new stuff on my injuries  which seems to have done the trick and even managed to have the most amazing 22 mile long run yesterday! 

   I've gotta find my video recording mojo again. My GoPro's collecting way too much dust! Hopefully in the next week I'll be bringing you some new episodes of the video podcast. We are officially half-way through the training! Adapt, overcome, persevere and ride that lightning my friends! Have a great week!      

Week Six-In It For The Long Run

  

   I've talked before about how deciding to become a distance runner can change your life. It can help you transform your body, it can help you discover untapped strength that lies deep within yourself and it can help you accomplish some damn incredible things. It can change you in many positive ways.

   But there's also a dark side to this passion that we have for the open road. Even if you're lucky enough to be gifted with a better than average amount of fast twitch muscle fibers, it takes time to do the training, run that 5K, that half-marathon, that ultra marathon. It can become an addiction, albeit a healthy one. That can be fine if you're young, single and without a lot of responsibilities. You have nobody to answer to other than yourself. But when you have a marriage, a family, a career to contend with things can get a little tricky. Juggling all of those variables requires a good deal of patience and creativity. You have to learn to adapt easily and roll with what life throws at you. 

   This crazy urge to run for hours and prove yourself in distance races can get even worse when you start seeing your health change for the better, your split times getting faster and your recovery quicker. For some runners it's about setting the next new PR, running faster and going longer than last time. It's something that runs in your blood. For as much as you try to deny it, running becomes part of who you are.

   This passion that you have for our sport can come at a price. Your family, your friends, the people that you care most about find themselves sacrificing more and more time with you as your personal victories mount. You sometimes miss your child's baseball game, don't have the energy to stay up and watch that movie with your spouse and don't have the time to meet your friends out for happy hour.

   A long time ago when I first started running I quickly discovered how challenging it is to fit a 30 hour day into 24. It's one of the reasons that I typically run only one or two races in the Summertime and take the Winter and Spring off. Over the last few years I've enjoyed some of my biggest breakthroughs with regards to my running career. I drastically improved my fitness, entered the world of the run-net community through blogging and video podcasting, broke that four hour barrier and started a running streak. All while my family and friends watched and cheered me with copious amounts of enthusiasm.

   I love the fact that I've overcome those challenges. It's become addicting to beat what I once thought of as unbeatable. With my decision to run my first ultra-marathon this year, let alone the Rochester Marathon and a second ultra, my free time has gone out the window. This has been hard on my family and friends leaving me feeling more than a little guilty about my ambitions.

   So this week my perfect attendance to my training schedule fell. The streak lives on. But it wasn't my best training week. A lot of stress and challenges. Something had to give. Which wound up being a portion of my training for the week. As the week draws to a close I don't have any regrets. In many ways this week was a wake up call. What good is all that hard work and those thrilling victories without the ones that you love there with you? Without the incredible support and sacrifice of your loved ones those amazing victories would be nothing more than a number on a GPS watch, a sweaty race bib and a $5 medal.

   Running is something extremely important to me. But it isn't everything. This week reminded me that it's only something that I do for fun. Why be so serious? If I miss a workout, a fail to nail a better mile split by a second or need to let my running streak fall that's OK. Life is wonderful and running is a way to complement it and live more fully. Not the other way around.

   Thank you to my family and my friends for the support that you provide on a daily basis. Without you I'd just be some guy who can run really far. Say thank you to the ones who make us the amazing runners that we are. It's as much as of a race for them as it is for us. Everyone that knows me sees that I'm not giving up running anytime soon. I'm in it for the long run. I just have to slow down occasionally, enjoy the scenery, the wonderful people that support my crazy endeavors and be thankful for what I've been given.

   Back at it this week! Time to give the legs some speed after this little step back. Hope you have a great week! Ride that lightning my friends...

            

Week Five-Remembering The Hunger

   It's not that I'm not used to the pain. When you first become a distance runner it can be glaringly clear at times that it's not easy discovering what you're capable of. I guess all of life is like that to some degree. Nobody's born with prior experience or innate ability to do new things. It takes time and practice to be able to do something well. Good genetics can definitely make that journey easier. Especially in distance running. But at some point you're going to be standing there wondering why the hell you do this to yourself for fun? 

   Over the last 12 years I've had many of those "Why the hell?" moments. I remember the first time that I ran 13 miles. I remember the panic in my wife's voice as she discovered me laying on the floor in front of our bathroom. I wasn't in any kind of trouble. It just felt glorious to lay there on the cold tile felt and it was so convenient to be that close to the toilet. To this day I still get stomach issues when I run really far. It's got something to do with your body pumping extra blood to your legs and away from your organs.

   I remember the first time that I discovered chaffing. There you are having the time of your life running mileage that ordinary people drive in their car. You're on top of the world and feel completely bad ass. Then you start noticing some stinging in all the wrong places. Then comes the blood. But you really don't get the full effect until after the race when your in the shower. You discover places on your body that you never even knew existed, let alone that could chafe. I remember reveling in joy when I found that the small circular band aids diabetics use to cover up their injection points also worked perfectly to protect my nipples during my marathons.

   I remember trusting the race directors of my very first marathon that there will be everything that they said there would be at all of the water stations. They had everything covered. It's nice to know that I can run 26.2 miles on nothing more than plain water and one cherry popsicle. Everything was long gone by the time I got to those stops. I've never been so hungry in my life. I remember being so starved that I could've eaten dirt.

   There's countless other things that have challenged me over 12 years of running. But as those years grew in number, the number of challenges decreased. With experience your body learns to adjust to running for hours. You buy stock in anti-chafing products like Bodyglide and Squeaky Cheeks. You bring a race belt to your event stocked with all the things that you'll need. You learn what works for you and what doesn't. Over time you can become quite good at this running thing. But also quite comfortable. You forget about the hunger that you had in the early days to be better. You're already running enough that ordinary people think you're an Olympian. Why do anymore hard work?

   I found myself at that point a few years ago. I decided that I wanted a change. I wanted that hunger back. I changed my eating habits, lost a lot of weight, broke four hours in a marathon and ran 366 consecutive days. It felt good to be challenged again and feel like I was growing.

   Over the last 12 years I've tried many different running plans and tweaked all of them into a marathon training plan that's gotten me good results. I've been using my homemade plan and running the marathon distance so long that I know it by heart. Days aren't labeled Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. But instead Strength Run day, Cross-Training day and Easy Run day. I run marathons. I could do them in my sleep.

   With this new ultra marathon challenge before me I've had to change my training all together. Forge ahead with a new training plan into territory that was familiar but unknown as well. My training's been going well up until this week. My 18 mile long run felt like a complete disaster. I only had one day off this week. Which meant the only time that I could fit this run in was on a hot and humid day. Sunscreen left me blinded by mile three, I forgot my cellphone and I walked about a third of the distance. It felt more like torture than training.

   It's in workouts like these when you experience the whole spectrum of emotions. Elation to despair. You think about so many crazy different things. Your life, your family your future. The voice of doubt is louder than usual. The end of that run left me feeling like a fool to think that I could ever go further than 26.2 miles. But looking back, I did what I do best, put one foot in front of the other. I didn't stop.

   Finding yourself shouldn't be something that stops when you reach adulthood. It does for some people. But for those who dare to continually search for the amazing things that lay within us it's not about the end result. It's about the journey. After some thought and a lot of pep-talk messages, thank you, that long run wasn't a disaster. It was an opportunity for my body to remember a hunger that's been forgotten. The training's only going to keep getting harder, the miles longer. I'm going to be a very hungry man in another 11 weeks!

   Thank you for going on this journey with me. Hope your week was good and your future's looking bright. Let me know if I can do anything for you! Ride that lightning my friends...

Week Four-Why Not Get Help?

   

   As I ran the last few miles this week I found myself laughing at my silly self a little. I've always been the type of person who takes a small amount of pride knowing that I can accomplish almost anything on my own. I think that's one of the reasons why I like distance running so much. When you're eight miles out into a 16 mile long run the only way you're going to get back home is to run the other eight miles. No teammates to carry you, no taking a seat on the bench when you're tired or saved by the bell in the final few seconds. Running is one of the most honest sports out there. What you put into it, you get out. 

   Through the last 12 years I've run over 60 different races. That's a lot of miles. When I was a younger runner I got the typical aches and pains that you might expect from someone growing into our sport. I didn't know about strengthening my core or stretching to improve my flexibility. I got through those hard miles with nothing other than sheer stubbornness. Nowadays I practice a dedicated strength and core routine. Even though I hate doing it, I try to stretch everyday. The aches and pains still rear their ugly head now and then. Even more so since I've gotten older. But my stubbornness continues to be stronger than ever. 

   Up until last year I was doing pretty good with watching those stubborn miles go by. I'd managed to self treat all of my injuries up until then. But things started to come apart that Fall. I got a serious case of peroneal tendonitis that almost sidelined my 366 Project as well as any hope for a marathon that year. I struggled through single mile runs to keep the Project going and managed to get a deferment for my hometown marathon in Rochester. The tendonitis eventually got better. But then I battled with hamstring tightness for the rest of the year right up to my last minute decision to run the Empire State Marathon as a substitute to Rochester. I ran the race, set a PR and had my best marathon racing experience to date. I capped off the year by surpassing my 366th day of running. It was a momentous 2013 with a lot of accomplishments. It's be nice to say that my good old stubbornness is what got me through those challenging times. But I'd be fibbing. I got a little help from my primary care doctor and chiropractor.

   It all started after one of my running friends grew tired of me complaining about my nagging tendonitis. They suggested that I see a local chiropractor in our area who specialized in distance athletes. At first my stubborn self thought the idea of seeking help from anyone, let alone a chiropractor was ludicrous. I'd heard so many horror stories from people about these "alternative medicine" doctors who done more harm than good. Why would I pay for an expensive office visit to someone to make me feel even worse? I'd rather buy an extra pair of running shoes and suffer on. After some thought and some checking I discovered that an office visit would be covered under my current health care plan. I also discovered that this particular Chiropractor, let's call him Dr. Mike, was a marathoner and triathlete himself. I asked around my local running community and heard good things about his practice. So, I decided to give it a shot.

   What I got at my first visit wasn't what I expected. I expected to get tweaked and cracked for 20 minutes. But instead Dr. Mike took the time to get to know me, my past and where I wanted to go in the future with regards to my running. I found it refreshing to talk with someone who didn't look at me like I had three heads when I told him that I run 26.2 miles for fun.  He understood where I was coming from.

   Over that summer Dr. Mike not only erased my tendonitis, but also eased my hamstring tightness. Aches that I endured for years were quickly erased after a few visits. Without my primary care doctor's and Dr. Mike's help I would've surely never had the great year that I did.

   I was laughing this week because this old body's developed yet more aches, some tightness in my hips. What can you expect when you train for an ultra marathon and run everyday? It's time to call Dr. Mike again and make an appointment. Yes, I still have that stubbornness of my youth. But now it's more directed towards attacking hill workouts than training through injuries which can be fixed. Sometimes it's good to get out of the way of your ego. Yeah, he may be faster. But the race is long and you'll pass him in no time with a little help from your friends.

   It was a good week of training. This week's 16 mile long run felt better than last week's 14 mile. I'm still struggling dealing with the high humidity here and locking down a fueling plan that works. Finally got confirmation from the new race directors for this year Rochester marathon that my deferment's been approved by the new company that bought the rights to the race. That means three very long races in three consecutive months. I've never done something like that before. It'll be interesting to see if I put Dr. Mike on speed dial or not! The home treadmill's back up and running after a visit from the fitness store tech!

   Do some research, check some credentials and think about getting treatment from a chiropractor. It may make your miles a little easier. Let me know if you've had any good experiences with your doctors. Hope your training is going good. Let me know if I can help. Thanks for following my journey. Have a great week. Week four is history!

   Ride that lightning my friends...