on three on three

Surprisingly, I had a really good week of running. Netting 71 didn’t feel like too much of a jump, and the long run was a nice way to finish off the seven-day stretch. On Tuesday (workout day) I had a couple partners in crime out there, as the Kean-Machine (Erik Kean) and Tim Fahey helped keep me company on the track. My only story for the week comes after out workout was over. Coach Centrowitz (who said all of two words to me that day) called Kean over to him and the two had the following exchange:

Coach: Kean-Machine, did you get out for your run this morning?
Kean: Coach?
Coach: Did you get out for a run this morning?
Kean: No Coach.
Coach: Well come on Kean-Machine, time to start thinking like an athlete again. Get your shoes on and go run easy five miles.  Let’s go Kean-Machine, and take him with you (me).

Coach Centrowitz was in a good mood, so this was a relatively “light” conversation, but it had a big impact on me.  Since that moment I have been contemplating the statement: ” time to start thinking like an athlete again.”  I know it wasn’t directed “at” me, but there is no question that I was meant to hear it.  Over the last few weeks I have been doing the little things (stretching, hip exercises, taking it slow, watching my diet) fairly well. However, I need to continue to build slowly and stick with them. When the miles start coming, and they will come; I need to be ready.  It’s time to start thinking like an athlete again.

3/28/10 - 4/3/10
Sunday: easy 6 mile recovery run in Laurel w/ Em
Monday: easy 9 miles in Laurel
Tuesday: workout, 3 mile warmup w/ 4×150 strides, mile 4:57 (600m recovery), 2×800 in 2:20 (400m recovery), mile 4:58, 5 mile cool down, total 12 miles
Wednesday: easy 8 miles
Thursday: easy-medium 10.5 miles
Friday: easy 9 miles
Saturday: 16.5 (1:47:40) in Virginia w/ Tim Fahey, felt good and never let the pace get out of control
Total: 71 miles

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No time for philosophical rants these days. If I am going to try and get back a little consistency, I have to start logging (and posting) my mileage again.

After another restart a few weeks ago, I am feeling healthy and 100% injury free.  However, that’s today.  Tomorrow I could easily cramp up on my run and ruin my hamstring for another two weeks.  I am being cautious, but at some point I just have to run the miles out there.  Last week saw the positive “strides” I have been looking for.

3/21 Sunday: easy 6 mile run in Laurel w/ Em, didn’t feel so great, but no big deal
3/22 Monday: easy 8 miles in Laurel
3/23 Tuesday: workout day, 2k (decreasing 5:35-5:15 pace)
& 9×400 w/200m jog rest (decreasing 72-69), total 10.5
3/24 Wednesday: easy 8 miles in Laurel
3/25 Thursday: smooth 10.5
3/26 Friday: easy 6 miles in Laurel
3/27 Saturday: easy-moderate 12 miles in Columbia, MD from Lake Elkhorn
Total: 61 miles

I tried to mix in some “longer”  runs toward the end of the week, as I’ll be slowly building back up to over 70 miles soon.  Because of my body’s recent propensity for injury I am “trying” to be safer than sorry.

Go Celtics.

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I’ll do this quickly, because this year I am just not quite up to the task of writing a playoff predictions column.  I guess I just want this on record in case I nail the superbowl winner.  Overall, I will admit that the NFC has finally caught up in terms of talent this year, and are just plain better than the AFC.  I still really hate the Chargers, but think they’re probably the best team in the league this year (they just won’t win).  I apologize for the weak post, but it’s all I’ve got at this point.

AFC

Wildcard Round

Pats over Ravens, did you really think I would pick my guys to lose to Baltimore?  No way, 24-10 victory for Brady and friends.\

Bengals over Jets, not much to say here.  I think Ochocinco deserves a win. 17-7.

Divisional Round

Colts over Bengals, no brainer here.  34-13.

Chargers over Pats, toughest thing to do is pick my team to lose.  I think they can win, but without Welker it just doesn’t look good. 28-20.

Championship

Colts over Chargers, refuse to bet against Peyton at this point, he’s that good.  41-28.

NFC

Wildcard Round

Packers over Cardinals, I have a feeling about Aaron Rodgers. 28-23.

Cowboys over Eagles, Eagles just don’t look that great these days, Romo gets it done. 35-16.

Divisional Round

Vikings over Cowboys, make no mistake here, the Vikings are good. 27-14.

Packers over Saints, don’t trust the saints against a solid offense. 24-21.

Championship

Packers over Vikings, the “Revenge Bowl”, go Aaron Rodgers! 35-31.

Superbowl

Colts over Packers, yeah I know this is predictable, but  I am still reeling from 4th and 2.  27-17.  Peyton MVP.  Yeah this sucks.

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For whatever reason I let it all slip away.  I had focus, determination, and most of all, confidence.  I can point to my injury and blame all of my indecision, inadequacies, and complete lack of production on it.  But, I shouldn’t and I won’t.   Sure, my injury was part of my problems, but my head and my heart were frequently in the wrong places.  My injury didn’t keep my from getting in the gym everyday to lift.  My injury didn’t keep me from challenging myself more in school.  My injury didn’t keep from finding more about myself.  I did.  I had time on my hands and all I did was “hope” for the best.  Too bad hope only took me so far.  I wish I could say that I worked my way out of the funk, but I got lucky.  I got healthy.

Fast forward to October 2009, life is changing.  (Anyone catch the season finale of Entourage, crazy!)  Now I’m married; how weird does that sound?  I’m looking at real 9-5 jobs at real companies; My friend Dave would argue that I’m not cut out for those.  My favorite things in the apartment are my television, washer/dryer, and my kitchen-aid mixer; which one of these doesn’t belong, what ever happened to Madden on the Xbox?  It’s all really insane.  The good thing is I’m back to running, and that has made all the difference.

With that, I’m back and here is last week’s training.

9/29 Workout: 8×100m w/ 4oom jog rest (3:06, 3:04, 3:04, 3:02, 3:02, 3:00, 2:58, 2:51)

Also, here is something for all of the loyal followers out there.  I have been holding on to this one for a while.  I await comments, and I’m sure there will be questions.

2003 NE Division III 5k (Last 5 Laps) from Nate Brigham on Vimeo.

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Yeah, I’m back at it. Up to 45-50 a week.

Today’s run was a 7 mile jaunt in the greater Laurel, MD area.

Lots of things to tell, working on an epic post.

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Welcome to the good life.

Today I had what I hope is my last physical therapy appointment for a while. I have one scheduled in about two weeks from now, but it is just a precaution. My hope is that I will get to cancel it, but I have no idea how my leg is going respond as I build back up. Today things are feeling pretty good, my leg still has a little bit of tenderness, but no real pain. At my appointment I got the full workup, complete with deep massage, ultrasound, and ice. No pain to speak of during the massage, which was a relief, as I hadn’t tried to find the spot on my own. All-in-all I went to physical therapy for 24 visits, dating back to mid-February. Here is a shout-out to Physiotherapy Associates on New Mexico Avenue for their patience and support during my recovery. In the end, no one is really sure what really caused my leg to heal, but we are all glad it did. Thanks again to all those who worked on me up there, I really appreciate you guys getting me back on the roads.

Training wise, I have run four out of the past six days. Here is the count at this point:

Friday 15th - 3 miles (19:30), on the AU track, video coming soon
Saturday 16th - 0 miles, day of rest for the legs
Sunday 17th - 3 miles (22 mins), up in Baltimore on some trails near Johns Hopkins
Monday 18th - 3 to 3.5 miles (24 mins), Glover Park Trails
Tuesday 19th - 0 miles, feeling a little sore and nervous
Wednesday 20th - 3 to 3.5 miles (26 mins), Glover Park Trails w/ Emily

I’ll probably take the day off today, as my leg will need the extra recovery. My schedule is day-to-day at this point, but I hope to be up to five miles by the end of next week.

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And just like that [snap of fingers], the wait was over.

Timeline:

May 6th - Feeling good and less sore than usual.
May 7th - Physical Therapy Appointment. As per usual I had deep massage done on my hamstring and ultrasound. Agreement was made that if I could string together one week of feeling good I could go for a run.
May 8th - Feeling great.
May 9th - Still feeling good, but getting nervous.
May 10th - A little tender, but still good.
May 11th - Can this be real? Still feeling good.
May 12th - Almost there.
May 13th - Sick to my stomach with nervousness. I had been waiting for this for two months.
May 14th - Physical Therapy Appointment. Still no pain. Permission to run granted.
May 15th - 3 miles.

That’s right, I went for a run. In some ways it was a little anti-climactic, but still a monumental trot. Day One ended up being three miles on the American University track at roughly 6:30 pace. Yeah, I know, why was I running that fast? Well, if you had that much adrenaline running through your body you might run that fast too. It didn’t feel fast and I didn’t slow down, so I am not dwelling on it. After 13 years of steady running my body doesn’t run 8 minute pace around a track. The plan was to run relaxed and I did that.

I’ll have more about this monumental day and my recovery process in another post. Until then, thanks to all for their support over the last couple of months. I’m back….

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So, no updates for about a week.  When that happens you can only guess that things aren’t going so well.  My optimism was a little early, as I wasn’t actually experiencing the breakthrough I thought I was.  In other words, no real progress this week.  Leg is still pretty messed up, with that isolated string of my hamstring muscle/tendon as sore as it has ever been.  I haven’t worked out or stretched intensely for about 5-6 days now, it just keeps aggravating my leg. No complaining in this post though,  just sharing the reality of the situation.

It looks like I’ll be heading home to NH this weekend, with a short stay in Boston/Cambridge on my way there.  I’ll be back in DC next Wednesday, with a small hope that the New Hampshire air gives my leg a little boost.

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No, I’m not writing about the last Star Trek movie to feature the entire original cast. I am talking about yet another new strategy for my hamstring problem. 

This morning my physical therapy appointment further addressed the concept of “working” my leg a little harder. On Friday I was able to literally push harder on my hamstring than I had before (actually I had Emily help), and consequently I had a relatively pain-free weekend. I have been receiving tissue massage at my therapy appointments, but we have avoided working the inflamed area too hard. This might be too soon, but I have noticed an immediate difference in how my leg feels. There is still soreness in my hamstring, but it’s a different kind. I’ll literally keep you all posted on the results.

In other news my friend Dave Lantman sent me this link on strength training. There are a lot of solid exercises to consider, definitely things I will be working on in the coming weeks.   So a shout out to Dave in Colchester Vermont (one area code and it’s 802). http://www.runningplanet.com/training/strength-training.html

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Well, this weekend was a busy one. With that came a hold on my cross-training. I have felt bad about missing three days of biking, but at the same time I have also felt exhausted. Overall though, my leg feels the best it has in months. I think I can attribute the good vibes to a quasi active release session on Friday. The jury is still out on the degree to which it helped, but my legs has felt different all weekend. I’ll provide more details in a future post.

Here is a recap of the weekend:

On Friday I had a film-festival deadline where I submitted my documentary-short “Wardian’s Marine Corps Marathon.” I didn’t know that I had to create a 30 second trailer for the film, so that threw my whole day out of wack. I also attempted to work on campus for a bit, and that sort of got screwed up as well.

Saturday I volunteered at Pacers Running Stores for their busiest day of the year, packet pickup at the George Washington Parkway Classic. I also got a chance to do some filming, getting some of the elite guys, packet pickup, and other Pacers personalities. It was a great day, as I felt like I was part of something bigger than a huge sales day.

Sunday was the race. I had a chance to film from the lead truck and got some pretty cool footage. I saw a really interesting race unfold among a select group of Americans, with locals Chris Raabe and Andrew Dumm getting 3rd & 4th overall in a shade over 49 minutes. At the finish I got more footage and even shot Pacer’s head man Chris Farley as he proposed to his now fiancee Kathy. It was an exciting morning, tiring, but worth it.

This weekend reminded me that I don’t actually miss the act of running the most. I miss striving for a new goal, preparing my gear the night before a race, drinking endurox, worrying about the heat, wearing my DS trainers, and getting called “soft” by my friend Steve. Really it’s all of the little things. I hope I am back to experiencing all of that sooner rather than later.

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