Well it's been an interesting week. I've run once - and it went pretty well but my physical therapist and the Team coach have advised me to cross-train until my foot/knee doesn't hurt. Our team coach is Jack Fultz - 1976 winner of the Boston Marathon - the year it was over 100 degrees. He's been involved with Dana-Farber since 1990 - helping to raise over $25 million for cancer research. He's been coaching the team for years - getting hundreds of people across the finish line. Pretty sure he knows what he's talking about.
Today I went to the gym and cross trained for 3 hours. One hour on the Cybex arc trainer, one hour on the stationary bike and one hour pool running in deep water. Jack swears by the arc trainer - recommends it as the closest you can get to running but with virtually no impact. It does actually feel like running if you set the machine up right. Pool running is something that lots of injured runners do. You wear a flotation belt to help you keep you head and neck above water, move your legs like your running (or stomping grapes as one video described it) and slowly move around the pool.
Today was my first attempt at pool running. Me and a thousand of my closest 5 yr-old friends. OK - maybe more like 100. But it seemed like a thousand. Running and jumping and splashing, running into me, cutting me off, hitting me with their noodles. But I was glad they were there - they were very distracting. The biggest complaint people have about pool running is the boredom. You can't wear your music player, no bank of tv's - all while you basically run in place. It is a tiring work-out, deceptive too - you're tired but since there's no pounding you don't feel like you've gotten as good a work-out as if you'd been running. Except that you have an overwhelming urge to sleep. And eat.
Especially brownies. Those two-bite brownies from the grocery store. mmmmm - brownies....
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