I always start the year by posting a set of goals for the year. At the end of the year, I review how I did. It’s that time of year.
Usually, my goals involve specific races, performance goals, and places I’d like to visit. This year was different. I knew going in that 2021 was going to be a rebuilding year, so my goals were to heal from injuries, rebuild my mileage base, and get back to a lean weight. I had some degree of success with each of those goals, but I also had some degree of backsliding. It seemed I would take two steps forward and one step back. Later in the year, it was two steps back. Here’s how I did in more detail.
Heal from Injuries
In August of 2020,
I injured my right knee. Shortly after
that, I ran marathons on 20 consecutive days.
After that, I cut back on my training, but I still ran several other
races. By the end of the year, it was
clear I needed to take a break, but I still had one more race scheduled. That was at the end of January.
On the last day of
January, I ran the Big Beach Marathon in Gulf Shores, AL. That race has some long sections of
boardwalk. The wood planks of the
boardwalk were a little bit springy, which forced my knee to absorb extra
shock. After that race, my knee was much
worse. Later that day, I could only climb
stairs by leaning on a railing and using my upper body.
In early February,
I saw my doctor. An MRI confirmed that
nothing was torn, but after nearly six months of running on an injured knee, it
had become chronically inflamed. My
doctor knows how much I ran, and he knows how many marathons I ran since
injuring my knee. I believe his exact
words were, “You’ve dug yourself into a deep hole, and it’ll probably take a
while to dig back out of it.” He
estimated I would need to take a month off.
I was more pessimistic. I thought
it might take as much as two months. As
it turns out, we were both too optimistic.
February came and
went. I didn’t do any running. I was doing physical therapy for my
knee. Other than that, my only exercise
was walking a mile once or twice a day.
I didn’t plan to try running again until I could walk up and down stairs
without discomfort. My physical
therapist gave me some additional exercises to help me maintain strength in my
legs until I could run.
March also came
and went. I needed to get more exercise,
so I gradually increased my walking to as much as four miles a day. I also started doing short low-resistance
spins on a stationary bike. I had to be
careful not to push with my quads.
Instead, I just pulled on the pedals, but without any pushing. That limited the intensity of my workouts. Still, it was the only thing I was doing that
actually felt like a workout.
I felt improvement
in my knee, but it was much too slow, and I was getting out of shape. Around the middle of April, I decided to give
race-walking a try. Before that, I was
just walking at a casual pace. It was
exercise, but it wasn’t training. I
would’ve tried race-walking sooner, but I didn’t know if it would aggravate my
knee.
My first
race-walking workout was 2.25 miles. My
average pace was 11:28. I was pleasantly
surprised to be able to go that fast. I
hadn’t done any race-walking since the previous summer, and I hadn’t been
serious about it since 2018. The
important thing is that it didn’t bother my knee at all, even though I was
going as fast as I could. That was a
relief.
Once I knew I
could race-walk without aggravating my knee, I started working on getting back
in shape. My training went well for
almost a month. Then I injured my lower
back.
Four years ago, I
took up race-walking while recovering from a back injury that required
surgery. That injury was more serious, but it was also much
higher in my back. I found that walking
at a fast pace caused a lot of rotation in my lower back, but it didn’t cause
any twisting in the middle of my back.
With a lower back injury, I had to be more careful.
I had to cut back
to just walking at a casual pace, but only temporarily. Before long, I was walking at a brisk
pace. Then I was back to race-walking,
but holding back a little on the pace.
It took about six weeks, but the back injury eventually healed, and I
was able to train hard again.
By now, it was
late June. My knee was improving, but I
wasn’t ready to run yet. I tried a few
run/walk workouts where I would run for as much as a quarter of each mile, but
I was mostly walking. At first, even
those workouts aggravated my knee.
From February
through June, I didn’t have any races. I
was able to race-walk, but I had to rebuild my endurance before I could
entertain thoughts of walking a marathon.
I didn’t want to race until I could finish one in six hours or less.
From July through
October, I race-walked several marathons, a 5K, a 10K, and a 12-hour race. I also tried a run/walk mix in one of my
marathons, but I didn’t like the way my knee felt afterwards.
I eventually
starting doing run/walk workouts more often, and I occasionally did runs on the
treadmill, where I could lessen the impact by running uphill the whole way. Then in late October, I had a big
breakthrough. I race-walked the first 17
miles of the Monkey Marathon, but ran the rest of the way. The next day, Deb and I toured a castle, and
I had to walk up these steps. It didn’t
hurt. When I could walk up and down a
steep staircase like this the day after running nine miles, I knew I was
finally ready to try running an entire marathon.
The first marathon where I ran the whole way was the New York City Marathon. That race has a few big bridges. Running the downhill sides of the bridges caused some discomfort in my knee, but it didn’t seem to do any lasting damage. Within a few days, I was back to walking up and down stairs without discomfort.
Two weeks later, I
ran the Philadelphia Marathon. I ran
much faster in this race. Instead of
holding back going downhill, I started running downhill with gusto. I had a little discomfort on stairs the next
day, but the day after that my knee felt OK.
I wish the story
ended there. It took me almost all year,
but my knee was about 95% healed. It
wasn’t perfect yet, but I could run marathons.
On the morning of
the Philadelphia Marathon, I noticed some slight discomfort around me right
hip. At the time, I didn’t think much
about it. In retrospect, it was probably
a nerve impingement. In the days leading
up to that race, I had been doing some extremely vigorous walking
workouts. I probably injured a disk in
my lower back. Running hard on the hills
made it worse. The next day, I couldn’t
move without pain in my lower back.
I felt much better
the next day, but I knew it would take weeks for my back to heal. Since then, I’ve trained cautiously. Most days, I put in a few miles, but I
hesitate to even call it training. When
I run, I have to go uphill to minimize the impact. That limits me to running on a
treadmill. When I walk, I have to slow
the pace to the point where I don’t feel any rotation in my lower back. Previously, I had been consistently
race-walking at a pace of 11 minutes per mile or faster. Now, my pace has to be 16 minutes of slower.
I’ve done two
other races since the Philadelphia Marathon.
The first one was the Rehoboth Seashore Marathon. This race had some boardwalk sections. Wary of the experience I had at the Big Beach
Marathon in January, I walked those sections.
Where it was paved, I ran, but at a cautious pace.
More recently, I
ran the Hawaii Bird Conservation Marathon, which descends more than 3,700
feet. When I signed up for this race, I
was worried that it would aggravate my knee.
That turned out not to be a big concern.
Instead, I had to worry about my lower back.
After the race, I
had discomfort going up steps.
Fortunately, that only lasted for one day. I feel like I dodge a bullet in that
race. My back didn’t feel any worse
after that race than it did after the Rehoboth Seashore Marathon, and it
definitely didn’t feel as bad as it did after the Philadelphia Marathon.
Again, I wish the
store ended there. Sunday evening, we
had a winter storm. We got a few inches
of snow, followed by freezing rain. When
it was over, our driveway had about an inch of densely packed snow, with an icy
crust on top. I went out to shovel the
driveway the next morning. My back
didn’t hurt while I was shoveling, but it started to bother me a few hours
later. By the end of the day, I could
barely function.
At first, I
thought I injured my lower back in a big way.
Now, I think it was mostly sore muscles.
That said, I was already recovering from a lower back injury, and
lifting all that heavy snow didn’t make it better. I’m still looking at taking it easy for a few
more weeks before I can do any real training.
Rebuild My Mileage
Base
In 2019 and 2020,
I ran an average of 55 miles per week.
On top of that, I was also walking, cycling, and doing weight
training. At the peak of my training in
2020, I doing the equivalent of 19 miles per day. That’s what prepared me to run marathons on
20 consecutive days.
In the first month
of 2021, I only ran 100 miles. Then I
took a break to give my knee a chance to heal.
My goal was to gradually rebuild my mileage base once I got healthy. I didn’t expect to get back to my previous
level this year, but I thought I could get close and then build on that in
2022.
As it turns out, I
wouldn’t run again until June. I put in
lots of race-walking miles during the summer months, but I wouldn’t run 100
miles in a month until November. Since
then, I’ve regressed. I can’t start
building my mileage again until my back heals.
I ran a total of
562.7 miles in 2021. It was the first
time since 1987 that I didn’t run at least 1,000 miles. The good news is that I walked 1,833.6 miles,
so my total mileage was closer to 2,400 miles.
That’s not as much as recent years, but it’s in the ballpark.
As I begin the new
year, I’ll once again have to wait to heal from an injury before I can pick up
my mileage. At the moment, I’m only
doing three or four miles of a day.
Get Back to a Lean
Weight
My last major goal
for 2021 was to lose weight. For most of
2020, I had a monster training load, and my eating habits reflected that. As I was forced to cut back on running, I was
slow to adjust my eating habits. In the
last three months of 2020, I started gaining weight.
I expected to
continue gaining weight as I took a break from running. I thought I’d have to get healthy first, then
rebuild my mileage base, and then lost the weight. I really thought it would have to happen in
that order. It turned out to be almost
the opposite.
At the beginning
of February, I knew it would be at least a month or two before I resumed
running. I was so worried I would keep
gaining weight, that I got serious about changing my eating habits. I began keeping track of everything I
ate. I also kept track of how many
calories I ate, and I set a daily limit.
If I didn’t know how many calories were in a food, it was off my
diet. I stuck to these rules rigorously
for almost three months.
This approach
wouldn’t work for everyone, but it worked for me. The longer I was able to stick to these rules
the easier it got. Initially, I was just
hoping to limit the damage. When I
started losing weight, it gave me the motivation I needed. Even before I was able to resume running, I was
back to my racing weight.
As I picked up my
race-walking mileage during the summer, I was able to eat more. I still kept track of what I ate, but I
allowed myself to eat a little bit more.
Eventually, I got
complacent. Even though I was burning
more calories, I started to gain weight again.
As long as it was just a pound or two, I didn’t worry too much. By the end of the summer, I was walking at
least 50 miles a week, so I was confident I could easily lose a pound or two if
I got serious about it.
Soon, one or two
pounds became three or four pounds. Then
it was five pounds. That was late
November. Then I re-injured my back, and
my training load dropped like a rock.
The timing couldn’t have been worse.
It was just before Thanksgiving. Holiday
meals, sweet snacks, and a reduced training load meant more weight gain. I’m finishing the year pretty close to where
I started.
This was a
rebuilding year, and 2022 is shaping up to be another rebuilding year. My goals for next year will probably look
familiar.
What About Races?
At the start of
the year, I listed some races I was hoping to run. I didn’t know when I would be ready to race,
nor did I know when international travel would be feasible. At the start of the year, I didn’t even know
when I would be eligible to get vaccinated.
Here are the races
I identified and whether I got to run them.
New England
Challenge
– This six-day series is held in May. By
February, I realized I wasn’t going to be ready for anything like this in
May. As it turns out, I wasn’t in shape
to finish one marathon, much less six in a row.
Fortunately, I never registered for any of these races.
Firecracker Triple – The last
Firecracker Triple was supposed to be held in 2020. When it was cancelled, I was hoping to run it
in 2021. The 2021 Firecracker Triple
also got cancelled. That’s just as well,
since I wouldn’t have been ready to run it.
Now it’s scheduled for 2022. It’s
on my wish list, but we’ll have to see if I’m healthy enough to train properly
for it.
Mad Marathon – I was signed up
to do this race in July of 2020. The
race was held in 2021, but it was postponed to September. I’m still interested in doing this race, but
it fell on the same weekend as the Tallin Marathon. I didn’t know if I’d be able to do that race
this year, but I wanted to keep my options open. As it turns out, I didn’t do either race.
Alaska Series – I cancelled a
lot of other plans, but I was able to do this series. I made it a priority as soon as Alaska
rescinded its quarantine requirement.
When I realized I wouldn’t be able to run these races, I worked hard to
get in shape to race-walk them. It gave
me an opportunity to finally complete a quadzilla in Alaska.
International races – For the first
time in more than a decade, I didn’t travel outside the United States. It would’ve been possible to do the Tallinn
Marathon in September, but I would’ve needed to walk it. Also, I didn’t know if I would be able to do
all the same sightseeing I had planned when I was signed up to go to Estonia in
2020. I decided to put this off for
another year, when I can have a better race and travel experience.
Boston Marathon – The race was
postponed to October, but I got to do the race in person (rather than virtual)
for the first time since 2019. Returning
to Boston for the first time in two and a half years was probably the highlight
of my year. I wasn’t ready to run yet,
but I was able to race-walk it in less than five hours. I also had reunions with a few different
running clubs.
New York City Marathon – This race was deferred from 2020. It’s the largest race I did this year, and it was the closest to a normal (i.e. pre-pandemic) race experience.
Minnesota races – I did six marathons or ultras in Minnesota this year. I used four of them to get in shape for the Alaska Series. I also did a 5K race and a 10K race. I race-walked all of them.
Other
Accomplishments
I had five
noteworthy accomplishments that weren’t goals at the start of the year.
1) I finished
first overall in the 5,000 meter race-walk event at the Minnesota Senior
Games. That qualified me for the
National Senior Games in May.
2) I finished
first overall in the We Walk Marathon.
It’s not the first time I’ve been the first place walker in this race,
but this year I also finished ahead of everyone who was doing a run/walk
mix. I was the first person ever to walk
this race in less than five hours.
3) I set a PR for
walking a 10K race. I finished a 10K race-walk event in 1:02:51. That’s
an average pace of 10:07.
4) I qualified for
Boston at the Philadelphia Marathon. I
thought I would need to resort to qualifying in a downhill race. Qualifying on this course was a pleasant
surprise, especially when you consider that almost all of my training was
race-walking.
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