Race Schedule for 2009-2010

It is my pleasure to finally bring you our tentative race schedule for the upcoming year.

We are not too fine to be talked into or out of anything.

1. Oct. 24, 2009 - Copenhagen 6 hour run http://cph6hrun.blogspot.com/

We have thus far participated in only hilly, technical ultras so it will be fun to see how far and fast we can run on a flat surface. Though it also means we won't have the usual excuses.

2. December 5 - FKBU 8,2 k http://www.fkbu.dk/ by Bagsværd Sø

3. January 10 - Kalundborg Winter Half Marathon http://www.5taarnsmotion.dk/

4. March 24 - Sydkystmaraton - Half Marathon http://www.sydkystmaraton.dk/index.html

5. April 4 - Skærtorsdagsløb 10 k http://www.hgam.dk/

6. April 24 - Chippewa 50k http://www.chippewa50.com/

? May 5 - Trieste Marathon??? Seems too close to Chippewa, but thanks for the invitation, Leslie!!

7. May 23rd - Copenhagen Marathon http://www.copenhagenmarathon.dk/1we.aspx

8. June 18th - Bornholm 24 hour race http://6-24-48-timer.dk/web62448/ (This is on the Danish island in the Baltic Sea north of Poland. I am hoping to use my distance there to represent Denmark in the 24 race world championships... just a litle dream I have)

* I actually signed up for the Western States Lottery for a total of 30 minutes and then took myself back out when I realized there was no way it would work with the kids' vacation time.

9. July ? - Kanal Triathlon - Olympic Distance

10. End of July - Mount Hood 50 mile http://www.pctultra.com/index50.htm There are many races in contention around this time, since we have vacation at the end of July and beginning of August, but we have some family in that area and of course Olga is one of the race directors.

11. End of August - Villa Gallina Løb 14 k in Haslev. No website!

12. Beginning of October - Brocken Marathon in Harz Nationalpark in Germany http://www.harz-gebirgslauf.de/index.cfm?fuseaction=start Thanks to Iris from Germany for telling me what a good race this is.

Running Song of the Day: Strange Overtones by Brian Eno & David Byrne (an unusual and beautiful song)

Forgive me, and the Crown Princess

I can't reveal our race schedule yet. SR has been out of town all week at a hematology course, so not only can I not discuss our upcoming races with him, but I am suddenly a single mom working full time with two kids. We've had fun but it has been crazy busy. Thank God for the baby jogger and a bike with a child seat.

Yesterday step-daughter presented flowers to the Crown Princess of Denmark, Mary, at the opening of the new Brain exhibit at Experimentarium in Copenhagen. Here is step-daughter receiving the "brain flowers" as she called them.



And here is the Crown Princess, actually talking with my neice, on her way into the exhibit. And that is SR's father in the background.

tendonitis cured

We went on a 20k run yesterday, mostly around Bagsværd Sø, and the more I ran, the better the injury felt.

It has now been 2 weeks since the Transalpine run and I now feel better than I did before the race.

Why did the injury heal so quickly? Here are my theories:

1. I do not normally have problems with my tibialis anterior, so running small amounts in itself has not exacerbated the problem.

2. I have been doing a ton a bikinig and swimming so the injury did not tighten up from sitting around and doing nothing.

3. I took prednisone early enough to prevent some inflammation (though it did not come without some side effects, which I didn't mention, namely the loss of the first layer of skin from my fingertips and small painful sores around my lips)

4. when I did run, I ran on relatively flat dirt trails

Of all these, 1 and 4 are the ones I am nearly 100% convinced of, the other two are hard to prove either way.

I look forward to revealing our upcoming race schedule in my next post.

Running Song of the Day: Va Fangool! by Nephew

No miracle cure

I guess it is no surprise that the prednisone did not cure my tendonitis. I still can't go on long runs, but I can go on short runs without pain. So perhaps some of the inflammation was reduced. As Steve Q mentioned, the injury still needs time and rest to heal.

Because of this blog, I was actually contacted by a family member about using prednisone for a more chronic tendonitis. Whereas steroid injections might help with chronic joint problems and some types of fasciitis, systemic prednisone will not help with chronic tendonitis. I am not a sports doctor. I am in training to be an eye surgeon, so realize I don't have the most experienced advice. But I just thought I would share my thoughts rather than having lots of reades running to their doctors and asking for prednisone.

In other news, step-daughter looked awesome this morning.

I have to say I love having her here.

I haven't been running enough to even have a running song recommendation :(.

I think I'm cured

For those of you who are just joining in, I developed some very painful, inflamed anterior tibial tendonits during the Trans-Alpine run. When it flared up badly on a run after 6 days of rest, I decided to take prednisone for the inflammation rather than Ibuprofen.

Sat. 50 mg prednisone
Sun. 50 mg pred - no running
Mon. 25 mg pred - ran for an hour tonight without a hint of pain!

It is almost too good to be true. I can simply find no evidence that I ever had tendonitis, except when I press down hard with my finger on the tendon.

Here is an anterior tibial tendon, which is not mine.

I'm done with the prednisone now and the effect has been good so far.


What side effects did I have?
Slight headache
Metallic taste in my mouth
palpitations

Since I only took it for three days, I luckily won't develop the long-term side effects.

I am not saying that I recommend everyone go out and get a prednisone prescription for all of their running injuries. But I also think it is good for doctors to be honest about how they treat their injuries. When SR suggested prednisone to Ida from Norway who developed the same tendonitis, I thought it was overkill. But then I thought about it a bit more. What my injury needed was a strong anti-inflammatory more than anything and that's exactly what prednisone is. Mega amounts of ice and ibuprofen that would work slowly, if at all, just did not seem like the best option. I would not do this for any injury, but felt with this one that the inflammation was harmful and seemed to be worsening. Hopefully I have actually protected the tendon and hastened the recovery with prednisone in this case. But, I would love to hear your thoughts, too. I noticed that I lost one of my followers today and hope I don't also scare the rest of you away :).

I will add that the injury deserves some more rest and I am not going to go all out with the running just yet.

Running Song of the Day: Touched by Cloud by Alberto Arcangeli

Transalpine 2009 Race Report - A Sheila among the Sherpas

We've been back now for three days and I still have pitting edema in both legs. I can barely lift them they are so heavy. I have huge scrapes and bruises over my body, swollen lips and even an edematous face. How on earth did I get this way?

Where but the Alps can one find such extreme mountain ascents and descents?

Below is Hannibal leading his army through the Alps in the 3rd century. From Saturday, Sept. 5th through Sat. Sept 12, 250 teams or 500 individuals attempted to cross the 240 km distance across the Alps, from Germany to Austria, to Switzerland to Italy, perhaps retracing the steps of Hannibal.

Of all the characters in the above painting, it is the poor elephant falling off the cliff that is most representative of my experience.

The night before the race, we arrived in Oberstdorf Germany to enjoy a large welcome dinner where teams from 25 countries were introduced. By coincidence, we sat next to Mikael and Søren from Denmark and Kimberly Giminez and Elizabeth Eppstein from California. Kimberly casually said "there are some people here who have never even run in the mountains before!!" I slouched a bit in my chair. Spirit Mountain in Minnesota probably doesn't qualify as a real mountain. And the last time I was in the mountains in Colorado, I ran on a treadmill.

It rained that night and I was worried. What in the world were we getting into here? But then there was this view from our Zimmer on the morning of the first day...

We started out fast, of course. We were in what we think was 3rd place for the mixed teams when we finished the first 10k and the first large ascent. But then the downhill started. It was steep, rocky, muddy and slippery. This was no problem for seasoned mountain runners, who passed us one by one.

And this became the sad story of our race. We were one of the top teams on the non-technical flats and uphills, but then we were daily passed by almost every single team in the field as we (I) struggled through the technical downhills and froze from fear on the exposed cliffs.

On the second day, there was a section where we came to the peak and then had to go down a rocky cliff backwards, holding onto a wire. We were in about the middle of the pack at this point. I started going down backwards, but kept imagining myself falling to my death. I was frozen still and felt the tears streaking down my face. One of the transalpine guides had to help me down. "What's going on?" I heard a woman yell above me. Then one of our Australian friends replied "We're being held up by the Sheila down there."

Yes, that was me, the Sheila in the land of the Sherpas.

By the third day, various parts of my body started hurting. Mostly my left knee (pes anserine bursitis) and left ankle (tibialis anterior tendon sheath inflammation). This meant the downhills were even slower.

We arrived about 2.5 hours later than we had told my mom and SR's parents who were watching The Lorax and step-daughter. SR was frustrated. I was in pain. The parents were irritated.

Day 4 started out the same way. We were among the leaders for the first 10k, but my ankle and knee just got worse and worse. SR started kindly asking if we could drop out so we could spend time with the family instead. Finishing that day would have been torture for both of us. So we dropped out of the official race. Strangely enough, Ida from Norway, a friend of ours, also had the same problem with her left tibialis anterior. The four of us from the two teams were taken in a bus back to the start. Ida then sought medical attention and was hospitalized in the next town, Scuol, Switzerland, because her left leg was so red and swollen that they suspected a skin infection. She was admitted for three days on IV antibiotics, bed rest and even given blood thinner injections to prevent a blood clot in her legs from all the bed rest. Let's just say I'm glad I didn't seek medical attention.

In the meantime, after we dropped out, I went over 12 hours without urinating and watched as my entire body swelled up with fluid. At 8pm the night of day 4, I finally urinated and knew it was just edema from stress and not kidney failure.

On day 5, we joined the race again for the 6km mountain sprint.The stage was arranged in a time trial fashion and we were leading the entire day until the top 8 teams came in and pushed us into 9th place out of nearly 100 mixed teams. And we were the top team that actually ran together rather than averaging our two times.

Since we were officially out of the race, we spent day 6 relaxing with step-daughter in the healing Baths of Scuol, Switzerland. It was awesome. I then felt ready for the next two days of mountain running.

On day 7 we did really well. I had mostly gotten over my fear of heights and did better on the technical sections and downhills.

On day 8, the pain in my left ankle and left knee returned, but we still had fun and got to enjoy the finish with all of the other teams.

It was humiliating and horrible, but extremely beautiful and challenging. I went from a sheila to, well, perhaps not quite a sherpa, but someone who would love to be a real mountain runner. Let's just say we're hoping to do it again. Either the the transalpine again or perhaps the transrockies (which looks like more running and less technical rock climbing and descending).

And if we did do it again, we'd rent a camper to save money and travel without the entire family, though we loved every minute we got to spend with them.

Transalpine Run Stages 3, 4 and 5

Today we are feeling good because we had the 9th fastest time (and 1st non-sponsored team) on the 6km mountain sprint, which was stage 5 of the Transalpine.

Sadly, but not suprisingly, we had to drop out of the official race yesterday because of problems with my left knee and left ankle. I could run uphill, but downhill and hopping side to side were too painful. This means that we can keep racing each stage, but we do not get an official overall time or a finisher's t-shirt.

This race is NOT a bunch of ultramarathons in a row. It is mountain running. And parts of it are dangerous. Many people are out because of injury. We visited a friend today from Norway who is in the hospital. Neither of us know if hospitalization was really necessary in her case, but I just think the readers of this blog should know how challenging this race is. And another man broke a leg. And another friend of from Denmark is also too injured to continue. We definitely have had fun, but the people here who are doing well are experienced mountain runners.

We are planning to take tomorrow off (which is another near-marathon length mountain crossing) and hopefully participate in the last two stages.

If we could prepare for this again, we would do a lot more steep, rocky downhill running.

I'm sorry I still have no pictures. We are in the town of Sent, Switzerland now and it is absolutely gorgeous. They speak Rumantsch in this area, a beautiful combination of French and Italian with a little bit of German. Just an interesting tidbit for you all.