The scariest run of my life

    So I recovered from my back injury and have been attempting to get into a consistent training regimen.  Towards the end of February I went down to Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee with a couple of buddies.  My back wasn't exactly 100% but I was looking forward to the trip and didn't want to back out.  The athletic pubalgia injury was still present but not as terrible as it was.  A perfect mix to do some mountain running !!!
     We drove down from Indiana right to the park.  I did about 13 miles and climbed about 3600 feet on the first day.  My lower back was super tight on the climbs which caused me to take multiple forced walk breaks during the effort.  Snow was about three to six inches deep on average and some drifts were between one and two  and three feet at times.  I ran up a trail called chimney tops.  Named for unique rock formations at the top of the mountain.

      The trail was hard to follow since it was covered up by all the snow and I had to follow the footprints of my buddies who were ahead of me and, at times, the blazes painted on the trees along the trail.  The run was hard and my back stayed stiff most of the run.  At one point on top of the ridge by one of the chimney formations the snow gave way and my right leg shot down off the trail.  Nothing was there to land on and I suddenly found myself crouching with all my weight supported by my left leg with my right leg dangling down. I was on the verge of falling down about fifteen to twenty feet. There wasn't anything to grab onto and I found myself powering up with my left leg.  Kind of like an impromptu pistol squat.  I got my right leg on solid ground and a few seconds later realized how close I just came to being totally fucked.  Thank God for all those Bulgarian split squats my trainer had me doing at the gym.  I honestly think things would have gone horribly bad there if it wasn't for my leg strength and balance that kicked in at that moment.

Chimney Tops and the trail

     Thankfully the rest of the journey up and down chimney tops wasn't as eventful as those couple of seconds.  The formations were pretty awesome and the scenery amazing.   I mostly just followed my buddies footprints the rest of the way.  I eventually came out to a service road and a junction with another one after that.

I followed that down until I came to a junction with a trail.  A sign indicated that it was a mile and a half to the trailhead.  I kept following the service road for a few more miles until I was worried that my mileage would end up too high for the first day.  I decided to turn back and take the trail back to the where the car was.  Bad move.
     The trail was snow covered and I had to follow blazes.  Nobody had been on this trail to give me tracks to follow.  About a third of a mile down the trail, ice and loose snow hampered my progress.  My Altra lone Peak shoe's traction was useless.  I started sliding down the ravine every other step.  I resorted to a kind of reverse kick where I drove my heel into the ice and make steps.  The going was slow.  I had to cling to trees and saplings in order to keep from sliding down.  At one point I had to break a stick in two and use them to stab into the ice and snow.  At this points I was using all upper body to drive one stick into the ice, reach over with my right hand and stab the stick into the ice, reach over with my left hand and stab that stick next to the right stick, and repeat.  My feet couldn't get traction so I had to lay on the side of the hill.  I advanced this way for about ten feet or so.  The feat was straining the tissue of my abdominal injury.  The stinging sensation near my groin was familiar and was not comforting.  This sucked.
     When I got over a small hump in the trail, it become walkable again.  I contemplated keeping the two sticks just in case I encountered a similar section again.  I decided not to.  I pictured myself falling on them awkwardly and stabbing myself with them accidentally.  That's how my luck was playing out.
     I made slow progress sliding my way along the trail.  At one point I supported myself with a large stick to give me more stability.  This lasted a small while until I hit a slick patch of ice and found myself sliding down the ravine.  I slid about 6 feet then I stuck my right foot out towards a small tree to stop my momentum.  I hit the tree rather poorly and my big toe screamed at me !!!  At best I just jammed the piss out of it.....at worse I just broke my damn toe !!!  It hurt like hell.  I clung to the small tree and rested for a couple of seconds.  I had to climb up the icy edge to get to the trail on a compromised toe.  This sucked.
     About a three quarters of a mile down the trail I encountered some footprints and signs of a person or people falling.  Falling a lot.  Whoever the tracks belonged to, they were having the same traction problems I was having.  They turned around at this point and headed back towards the parking lot.  This was fortunate for me because it gave me some hint of where the slippy spots were.  The unfortunate thing was that there were a lot more slippy spots.  None were as bad as what I encountered previously though.  My progress was made worse by my compromised big toe.  Damn, it hurt.
     About a mile and a half to two miles down the trail I encountered a young couple coming towards me.  I greeted them and just as I was going to tell them about the suckfest they were heading for the young man asked me "Have you seen a set of keys on a red laniard?"
     "Nooooo,"  I said slowly.  I turned around and looked back the way I came and then at the couple.  "That sucks.  This way is no joke."
    "Yeah.  We might have dropped it along here," he said.
    "I'll keep an eye out for it and leave it at the ranger station if I find it,"  I said.  "Wow.  Good luck."  That sucks.  I felt so bad for them.  I immediately felt better about my situation.  This encounter meant I was closer to the parking lot....I hoped.  The trail became better and I kept an eye out for their keys.  I didn't find the keys but hoped that they did.

stream heading up to Chimney Tops trail

     I eventually made it back to the car.  The toe wasn't much of a problem, but that was probably because of a mixture of the cold from the snow and just moving on it.  I had just jammed the toe and had significant bruising.  Later that night I had a slight limp and hoped that things would be better on day 2.    

2015: New Month, New Injury......Grrrrrrrrrr

    The title change of my blog to "Breaking Banul" has become kind of prophetic.  I have been suffering from an old....old....super old injury on top of my sports hernia this past week.  A couple of weeks ago I strained my back doing Zercher squats with a 115 pound sandbag.  The strain didn't happen all at once.  On the first day I went to use this particular bag I slipped a rib out of it's spinal socket trying to lift the damn thing off the floor into the Zercher position.  I did my sets and felt a pain near my shoulder blade afterward.
    The next day I paid a visit to my chiropractor.  He plopped the pesky rib back into place.  Looking back, I think the rib pain may have masked the initial damage lifting too much weight caused.  Later that day I did hill repeats climbing a little over 3,000 ft. of elevation in about seven and a half miles. At one point in the run I had a slight twinge in the spot but didn't think anything of it. I get these twinges every so often.
     A little backstory:  I fist damaged the disc to my lower spine while playing tackle football when I was about 16 years old.  I was tackled awkwardly and the weight of the tackler came down on my shoulders hyperextending my lower spine.  Lots of ouch.   Then about nine months later I was in the passenger seat of a Ford Mustang that was hit by a freight train.  The impact either aggravated the same spot from the tackle or an area close to it.  These two events created a weak spot in my back that acts up every now and then.  In the decades following these two events, I've had a myriad of things aggravate the old injury.  Lifting tool boxes, violent sneezes, slipping on ice, landing from a big jump, etc....
     For the past week now I haven't been running or lifting weights.  The up and down pounding of running was irritating the injury.  I would feel fine, go for a run, then wake up the next morning with a stiff lower back.  And I mean STIFF !!!!   Then the following day the pain came.  Grrrrrrrrrr.       
       The beginning of my injury coincided with the first major snow we've had in South Central Indiana this winter.  It's a lot easier to miss runs when there is ice and snow all over the damn place. Instead of just laying around I have been working on flexibility.  Stretching my hips and glutes seem to alleviate the pain in the spot.  Turning my focus to stretching and yoga poses has been a habit I have been trying to get into.  Recently at work, if there aren't any customers, I'll drop behind the counter into the pigeon pose.  Doing this has helped the back pain.   I hope to continue the habit after my back has healed. 
      I paid a visit to my chiropractor and he adjusted my spine.  I felt like the injury had healed enough but a spinal manipulation would help relieve pressure off the area.  One "pro" of visiting him is that he is always saying that I am "in tune" with my body.  The manipulation helped.  On the drive home I thought of how I felt like I have been constantly falling apart since mid-December.  One "con" of being "in tune" with my body.  Ugh.... One bright side is that I'm hoping that a nice side effect of this back injury is that my athletic pubalgia injury gets a huge opportunity to heal further.
     So here I am on my day off.  About three more inches of snow was dropped overnight.  I hadn't planned on running or lifting weights today.  I spent about an hour stretching and have been mostly resting.  Doing nothing is kind of nice.  I wouldn't want to make a habit of it.

Thanks for reading.

New Year.....Old injury

     So I recovered from my first 50 mile race and went into recovery mode.  It took several weeks for my right shin muscles to heal.  When they did I attempted easy runs to get back in the habit of running.  This lasted about half a run.  I got a bug in my butt to attempt to run faster.  I spent most of the last year just doing the grind of long distance running.  I needed something different.  Why not just go for shorter, faster runs?  So this lasted a couple of weeks......and then....
     Somewhere along the way I irritated my lower abdominal tissue where they attach to my pelvic bone.  And by irritated I mean I created tiny little microscopic tears where the connection occurs.  This is called a sports hernia, a hockey groin, or athletic pubalgia for you Latin fans out there.  I always love how I get "non-running" running injuries.  (I'm waiting for the day when I'm doing an overloaded Bulgarian deadlift and get a running injury !!!)

     I had this injury two years ago but it was more severe.  I couldn't run without severe pain happening.  I spent several months doing physical therapy and taking prescription anti-inflammatory pills.  I healed up, got better, and gradually built up my miles.  The injury was some weird thing that happened because my core was weak.  Physical therapy built that up and I started going to personal training at a local gym.
     The sports hernia came back towards late December.  I would go for runs and then hours later a soreness would creep in.  Sometimes a dull ache.  Other times a sharp pain.  Sometimes a blend of the two.  Not good.  I waited a couple of weeks to see if it would clear up.  Some runs would be fine....others the pain would come afterward.  There wasn't any consistency to the symptoms...or so it seemed.
     I noticed that faster runs where I pushed my speed were the times when the pain was more severe.  Could trying to run faster be irritating my lower abdominal muscles?  All evidence seemed to say so.  This revelation sucked.
    I went to my doctor.  He said it was likely that going from the slogging pace of an ultra to more of a 5k pace could have caused weakness in the tissue resulting in the tears.  He also said that as long as the pain wasn't present while running that I was on the mend. This meant I could keep running.
     He prescribed anti-inflammatory pills and said to do my physical therapy exercises from the last time this happened.  Three weeks passed and I had a check up.  Some minor pains were present but overall he was pleased with my healing.  He said to stop taking the pills on a daily basis and take them as needed.
     For the last month I've been in a strange place with my running.  I've been running less and concentrating more on my weight training and core work.  I signed up for the Mountain Mist 50k way back when my training was going awesome before the OPSF 50 miler.  I had to back out of that.  Pretty much donated money to an Alabama running club.  No biggie.
    My legs, core, shoulders, and back have all gotten stronger from this shift from running less to strength training more.  Sometimes my running has become more challenging because my quads were fatigued, and sometimes downright DOM'd, from that mornings squat workout or doing weighted sled drags.  I slowly got more excited about going to the gym than going for a run.
    I don't know why this has been happening.  Maybe because I can measure my progress in the gym better.  Weights are easy to gauge progress...This week I'm squatting 60 kilos.....two weeks later I'm doing 80 kilos.  Progress !!!   How do you measure progress in running?  By speed?  Oh, great.  Trying to get faster fucks up my pelvis and causes pain.  Hurm.  Thanks a lot universe.
     So for the past few weeks I've been trying to find a balance between strength training and running.  I also have to squeeze in the physical therapy core exercises plus some more advanced ones that I've thrown in for the extra challenge.  So my weekly mileage has suffered, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. My weight training has picked up...It's a good substitution.   I keep trying to convince myself of that.  I want to remain consistent with running and not all the 2014 work I put in just fade away.   Who knows?  We'll see what 2015 brings.  It sure is off to a challenging start.