Sluggish run this morning

Some days everything can be right: well rested, cool temperature, good things to listen to, no injuries, etc. Despite the fact that all of these running stars line up properly, the run still is harder, more grueling than normal. Today (obviously since I brought it up) was one of those days. Every step seemed like I had to push extra hard just to achieve a normal pace. Distances that usually fly by during my run seemed stagnant. I kept going forward, but nothing else did.

Was this a bad run? No, not really. More of just something to get past, which I did. I kept looking forward to my green drink when I got home. That was my inspiration to continue.

One odd thing was a couple of young homeless folks sleeping on the trail in the canyon this morning. They looked comfortable and didn't stir as I passed by despite my grumble about having to climb down the side of the canyon to get by them. Actually I didn't grumble too much, they looked pretty comfortable.

Rest day

No run for me today, I'll be surprised if I get up for one tomorrow as well. Rest days are really important and I don't mind taking several! Gives the body and mind a chance to normalize and heal. I can't even imagine the damage that running must cause the body, obviously plenty of good things too, but running has its far share of the bad.

This week at some point I hyper-extended my left knee somehow. Not bad, but I can feel it if I lock my knees and pull my feet back. It didn't bother my running at all, in fact I never even thought about it much less felt it. Still a rest day or two will be good for this minor injury.

The green drinks keep flowing. I just made one with a zucchini from the garden, the first of the year. I hope it is good as you always have way more of them than you know what to do with. My last batch was hands down the best I have made. I think because I added more yogurt than I have been to use up the container. I also whipped the hell out of it. It was so light and airy. Yum.

Smelling good

I finally broke down and purchased some special sports detergent, I couldn't take the stink any longer. I am not sure what happens when you exercise as far as sweating goes, but apparently I excrete death. So, Sports Suds to the rescue. I am so far pretty impressed with the job this stuff does, my duds smell pretty much like new after one wash. I say pretty much as there was still a bit of a lingering odor, but for the most part the mildewyness is gone. Next up, my shoes.

I don't wash my running shoes ever. I prefer the look of the grubby dirty shoe to the clean new shoe any day. It says I am a runner, not someone who just jumped into a pair of new shoes out for a doctor recommended run for the first time. New shoes look especially bad at the first of the year as now you take on the persona of the new year's resolution runner destined to do it for a week and then retire the shoes to the back of the closet. So, give me the dirty shoes any day of the week. However, mine have reached the point where I want to do something. Its as if I am strapping on big smelly blocks of mud to my feet. Plus I want to try the Sports Suds on them and see how it works, especially when it comes to the odor elimination part. While I don't keep my shoes inside the house, I do keep them in my office so smelling nice would be, well, nice.

Today I took my clean clothes out for the second 8+ mile run this week. If I can manage a couple more moderate runs I will be well over 30 miles for the week which is pretty much my goal mileage at the moment. I don't want to go too far over that right now, but five runs a week of 6+ miles would be great, or three 6+ runs and a long run. Today felt pretty good, I was getting a bit tired near the end, but I finished strong with a faster than usual pace.

I just found a couple pieces of the wooden spoon I chipped up in the blender making my green drink. Gotta be more careful of that. Today's recipe is not that good: apple, strawberries, two carrots, two kiwis and the requisite head of lettuce. It's not sweet enough, and I think having a banana would have helped it a lot. I am also not sure if I really like the carrot, makes it a little too crunchy. The one I made before it wasn't very good either, the mango I put in didn't work very well and gave it sort of a yucky aftertaste. I want to try pineapple, I think that would be good. Another piece of advice that I took from Montel Williams is try different things in your drinks. He says the variety of ingredients not only provides interesting flavors but gives the body a bevy of vitamins and goodness. Maes sense, but then again a friend just told me a story about studies of people who don't move from area to area and have consistent diets of only local fruits, veggies and meats all showed to have improved longevity and better health. Hmm.

Seizure meds and today's run

In my quest to cut down and stop taking on my seizure medication (Dilantin) I am now down to taking one dose a day (down from 5 a day). Before I was diagnosed with ms, the symptom that really slapped me across the head and forced me (and those around me) to realize something was wrong was the periodic seizures (or spells as I liked to call them, it sounded so Victorian to call them that which somehow lessened my fear). These "spells" would come on randomly sometimes every 15 minutes, sometimes every two hours or so. They seemed to worsen when my body heat would pick up. With running I would have them every 10-15 minutes at first and I would have to slow down to a walk (or attempt to walk, I actually dragged my one foot along in an uncoordinated manner). These instances of uncoordinated walking were paired with slurred speech which was all sorts of humorous and annoying at the same time. I was a periodic drunk without the fun of being drunk.

After being diagnosed with ms, this was the first symptom we attacked. I started out with 3 100mg doses of dilantin (actually the generic phenytoin). This initially helped quite a bit but didn't completely eradicate the issue of my spells. When I got a second opinion I asked a lot of questions about the spells as my main neurologist had told me they were a symptom she hadn't often seen. The docs at OHSU said the seizures (they liked the more doctorly term) were a rare symptom, but a documented one, The good news they told me was that these often go away over time and I may no longer need the medication. The way to decide whether or not I needed it anymore was to gradually taper off and see how it went.

At first I wasn't too concerned as the dilantin was working and my spells at first lessened adn then eventual stopped all together. I didn't like taking the dilantin for a number of reasons. One, I was removing the gelatin based capsules and taking the pill inside and it tasted terrible. Two, it sometimes gave me heartburn for which I could not take an antacid for fear of weakening the absorption. Three, it made my pee smell terrible (oddly, throughout the process of coming to a balance my dilatin levels were always low in my body, but it seemed to me I was peeing out a large amount of it.)

My first effort was to go from taking 5 a day to taking 4 one day then 5 then next. I'd do that for a week and then go to 4 and 4 and so on. I made it all the way down to 3 and 2 when I noticed the seizures coming back all be it very slightly. Still I didn't want a return to them so I went back to taking 4 and 4 which seemed to be a fine balance.

My second effort started about a month ago, but I decided to not do the complicated odd/even dose thing and instead did a full dose jump. As I dropped to 3 and 3 I started to feel very mild seizures at the end of my runs, but that soon dissipated. I stayed at 3 a day for a few weeks before dropping to 2 daily doses. A similar thing happened at this jump. I felt a bit seizuery (yes, not a word) after a few days as my levels settled. This only lasted for a couple days then went away for the most part. I still felt a little weird, hard to put my finger on just what I was experiencing. Just sort of fuzzy, but not that bad.

I have now dropped to one 100mg dose a day and experienced the same effects as my levels changed. I feel a little woozy, but nothing horrible. The heat has also been really bad these last couple of weeks, so I am sure that had an effect. I am going to stick with the one a day routine for awhile and see where it takes me. But I am really looking forward to stopping all together.

So running. I woe today with a slight hangover, nothing bad as I only had a few drinks last night with a friend. I was a bit sluggish at first, but about midway through I picked up my pace and kept it up. I really wanted to to to the track today, but it didn't seem like the best time to take up speed workouts. Soon!

Hot and fast run

And not only that, but a hot fast run without water. I started out at 6:30 and the temperature was already in the mid 60's. Maybe that doesn't sound too hot, but it is for me and Portland! Plus running in any sun makes it seem hotter. Ok, enough justification for my designation of "hot".

I wore my Asics Gel Kayanos this morn which are a lighter shoe than my Mizunos with the inserts. Despite being a bit more uncomfortable in the fore foot, they do seem to allow me to run faster (or maybe it is all psychological?). I didn't intend to run fast especially since I didn't have water with me but I found myself comfortably keeping up a fast pace. About 2/3s of the way through my six miles I seemed to have forgotten all about the fast pace and I slowed down to a plod for a mile or so, but I kicked it into gear at the end. In the end I broke a 9 minute mile pace for the 6.3 miles. not too bad.

I am thinking I want to start doing some speed work, more out of enjoying the workouts than a need to increase my speed (but a good side benefit). I'll probably head to the track and do some straight and curves here soon (sprint the straights and rest job the curves for a couple miles).

Today I tried a new recipe for my newly found green drink. I call this one Green Chocolate. Two oranges, one banana, one peach, 2 scoops of chocolate whey protein powder and a head of lettuce. It was really good. I bought some yogurt to try mixing into my drinks in the future. I am really like these.