Nail the Coffin Shut, on 2020

 One good thing out of the rubble... a new PR for annual running miles! Yeah, not much compared to the rest. But, it's what I got and I'll take it. An even 1,050 miles. Tomorrow morning - New Year's Day 2021 - I'll meet Ferrell and we'll complete one of his goals - to do the Rio Resolution 10K run for the N-th (30??) time in a row, even though the race was cancelled due to CoVid. Just he and I are going to drive out and do it. Crazy, yeah. Well. It's what we got and we'll take it.

A Christmas Present to Myself

Sorry, I've slacked in my posting here, during all the chaos of 2020. However, a nice Christmas present to myself is doing a short 2 mile run in the rain today, down to the beach... and setting a new annual running mileage high water mark.  Still a week left, so there'll be a few more miles. In a year of bad tidings on the big scale, this is a nice confirmation I'm still doing well health-wise.

Looking back, my favorite run of the year was 6 weeks ago, when Kirk B and I drove to Carrizo Plain for a night of astrophotography and preparing for the occultation of a star by the asteroid Ophelia on Sunday night. At least as strong a draw for me for this Carrizo Plain adventure was the opportunity to do my most spiritually renewing of trail runs - the 17 mile round trip to Caliente Peak, with the grand vistas and stark, lonely trails of the Caliente Range. It was reassuring that I could still do this difficult run and not limp in to the finish. I've gotten decent control over my psoas irritation, as long as I keep up my hip adductors and glute work. 

So - the CoVid Pandemic and gym and Cabrillo College (no bike commuting) closures meant I didn't come close to setting PR's in swimming or cycling, but I did succeed in setting a new PR in the most unlikely of venues - my running. And without a single race to show for '20 at that. Psoas and other issues kept my mileage down in '17, '18, and '19, and I'm grateful to be back on top in '20. In the "1000  Mile Club" of the SCTC once again!

"It's not the years... it's the mileage"

So there's limitations to my hip adductors theory. I'd been encouraged that just doing what I now call a "reset" of my left hip by doing some adductors, doesn't guarantee no psoas inflammation. This past week I've run a consistent 3.3-4.4 miles every day, but towards the end my psoas has flared up anyway. Last night, I got only 2 miles before it flared up, and was quite painful to walk home. This morning, it was still a bit sore and I walked to the Sunday morning ocean swim, and walking back it was getting more inflamed still. Let's see what a couple days off does...

Psoas issue, and hip adductors: confirmed

2020 has been another crazy year. It started out well; swimming yards on pace, cycling good, running OK, and then the  CoVid virus pandemic hit, closing down Santa Cruz. No more commuting to Cabrillo; that hurt my cycling. No more gyms open; that meant no swimming as it was too cold in March for me to think about swimming in the ocean regularly. I could still run, and kept up a good pace. However, with no gym, I was doing no hip adductors and in fact that issue I just plain lost track of, what with all the disruption to normal life that the pandemic caused. Then, in April I drove to Carrizo Plain to get video footage of the asteroid event meant to be the centerpiece of Astro 25 (which, like my other courses, went to strictly "on-line"). It had rained the previous day, and I could not drive to the trailhead for Caliente Peak, so had to run up the long road to the ridge top, and the fine mud clung to my shoes and put a strain on my hip flexors. For the first time this year, I felt my psoas irritation return. After that, it snowballed and soon it was as bad as ever, sideline'ing me again. I then realized that a contributing factor was likely the lack of hip flexor exercises. Until I get a home gizmo for this (pilates ring I think), I found I could do squeezes of my tightly bagged down jacket to at least wake up those muscles. May 29 I felt a "give", as I have felt in the past  on the adductor machine, as if something in my metal hip is repositioning. I've learned to associate that with a good thing, and major relief from psoas irritation. It worked again. I went from hardly being able to walk, to doing 2 miles, then 4 miles, then 13 miles on May 31 in Fall Creek, in the following 3 days. And this week 11 more miles so far, but that was too much too soon, and my psoas is irritated again. I'm re-doubling hip adduction and hoping to have a pain-free run tomorrow. My 21 mile ride today, over Branciforte to Old San Jose Rd and the beach and home, felt just great. On pace now for over 900 miles for the year, far above the 600 miles I did in '18 and '19, and my goal is to get it up over 1,000 miles once again. May 24 I began regular swimming in the ocean again, being sure to get in 3800-4500 yards per week. the water's 60F. Nice! Have no idea when / if the InShape gym and pool will re-open, so if I hope to keep my continual yearly increase in swim miles rising, I'll have to make friends with ocean swims for more often than in the past. And get a quality hip adductor workout gizmo.

Back in the Groove

Strangely, that 10K at the Turkey Trot was my only bad day with my psoas. I took a bit of time off, then had a great December averaging 22 miles/week, and that's continued in January. I do have, still, a feeling of "old chewing gum" around my left hip, and ordered a blood test for my chromium and cobalt levels to make sure that they're still excellent like at my last look many years ago - metal allergy is a worry with metal hips. However, I don't think that's going on. There's still no indication of any symptoms indicating bone/metal interface trouble. I am also thinking about perhaps a hard session of Rolfing to break up the area. However, overall I can't complain. I've had pain-free running and my psoas issue seems genuinely to be getting significantly better with now many months of evidence, albeit setbacks with fast-paced pavement races. Slow trail runs are fine, at almost any distance. Today I did another 10 miler in Fall Creek, and these now seem like just a weekend run and not a big deal. And something I now take for granted I'll be ready to run again after a day of rest. I also tested my psoas in cross country skiing, where there's much more weight on my hip flexors to move forward - I did the Gin Flats trail at Yosemite 2 days ago. No hip trouble. Just some blistering from worn socks and poorly fitted boots.

More surprises

2019 has been a down and up and down year - it began with a "series of unfortunate events", with viruses, with a kidney stone, and with a XC skiing accident that pulled a bone fragment off my knee and took me out of action for a while. Late Spring, summer, and early Fall were all good, with the highlight being a successful completion of a long-time goal - the GraniteMan Challenge - in the Eastern Sierra in September. I had a long series of trail runs and beach runs and short pavement runs that gave me no pain in my psoas - was this long nagging problem finally whipped? Then I came down with a virus and joint pain that had me suspicious of Lyme Disease after cutting trees for days at Cabrillo Observatory, and my doc was also quite worried, so I got the full 3 week nuclear option of antibiotics (Lyme test was negative, though). Regardless, I must have had some sort of bacterial infection because within 2 days, my lethargy disappeared and I was eager to get out and run again, although my thumbs and ankle were still hurting. Not problem enough for running (yet). I was feeling quite optimistic for a good run at the Santa Cruz Turkey Trot 10K on Nov 23 a month ago. Alas, not to be. At mile 1 my psoas began hurting and quickly got worse. I stuck it out, out of pride more than anything else, and finished with a 1hr 13min time - not what I'd hoped, not what I'm aerobically capable of, surely. I hurt bad enough that it kept me from any running for 10 days, and even walking was very painful for the next week. But since then, I've been fine, and back to decent distances w/o hip pain. Doing adductor work, is all that I can attribute this to. I'm still trying to figure it all out. Last weekend I got in 15 miles of trail hiking and beach running at Pt Reyes, with Steve K, Mark and Leanne S from UCLA Sierra Club days long ago. Love running on Abbott's Lagoon beach! It got my run total close enough to my goal that I decided I should go for it after all (after giving up on it after the Turkey Trot debacle). I just need to average a 5K per day through 12/31. Then I'll have beaten last year's mileage. I've already, as of now, set a new PR for annual swim yardage. 206,800 yds, almost 120 miles in the water! 

Great Progress tilll.... back to square 1

I did the Turkey Trot 10K this past weekend. It did not go well. Now, I've had no hip psoas pain for many months now. I attributed it to doing renewed abductor work, running form change dating back to Jeff M's advice, and having gotten Vibram 5-fingers running "shoes" and done several 10 mile runs through the trails here over the past couple of months. After the last trail run with the vibrams, about 3 days later I felt some soreness in my ankles and decided to stay off them for a while, which I've done. I did a 12 mile easy trail run through Big Basin a week ago. But my psoas issue returned with a vengeance last Thursday, and worse when I tried running the 10K race. Of couse, I tried to run hard, at 10K race pace, not my usual easy trail runs. No doubt that has something to do with it. but I've not been able to do a psoas-pain free pavement race for several years now, even though my psoas has not bothered me for short pavement runs to the beach, and on trail runs either, even runs lasting 4 hours. So... I'm back to trying to figure out what's going on.

Anyway, I did get a 3rd place medal, and enjoyed the company of many friends