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Shit-show snow run

February 8, 2014 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 32, freezing rain

Comments:
Got in a fair amount of writing this AM. The plan early this week was to do a Hardesty trail run, but the snow completely fucked that plan. The last snow storm made in-town running still doable, so four of us - me, Lewis, Mr Roberts, and Dan-O agreed to meet at Amazon to try to do some road/trail running.

It took about 2 blocks of running - through 4-8" of snow with 1-2" of GLARE ICE on top of it - NONE of it plowed or shoveled - to determined that this sucked balls. It look 25 minutes to run 2.5 miles. Trail running was OUT; I wanted to just run home, but we decided to try running south to the Rexius "trail". Dumb idea, but I thought we could at least run on the roads.

I shuffled along at 11 minute pace in a "plowed" (by tires) doubletrack on the road, while the guys struggled to keep up. Finally, after a half mile, they joined me on the roads. From there, it was a game of "Frogger" - dodging oncoming vs rear-coming cars - til we got to the Headwaters Trail.

The guys wanted to try "running" up it. I thought it was stupid, and they agreed when we heard and watched tree limbs, heavy with coated ice, break and fall all around us. We ran only a mile, precariously, up the trail then ran the "powerline road", which is more open. It is a doubletrack gravelroad that barely had any prints, so we crunched our way through the 2" ice. It was a great glute workout but otherwise sucked. Finally, we popped out onto Fox Hollow and took that to Donald and downhill toward LB's house.

From there, we just ran south. I was already ready to be done. On the roads, the tire treads were runnable, but again, you had to dodge traffic. Once on the busy main-drag Willamette, it got even crazier. We did our one good deed of the day, pushing a stuck car OUT of a McDonald's driveway, then continued on.

Mr Roberts turned off at this time, then Dan-O and Lewis ran me back to my place. Total run time was 2hr, but mileage was probz only 12 (but I'm calling it 13, damnnit!). Near the end, it was rather entertaining...kind of like an ultra: novelty at first, then "Ugh this SUCKS!", then you get over it and just "Go". Finished the run soaking wet from freezing rain, and I had an ice coating on my visor bill!

Mechanics: I finally figured out that, once again, it's not my hamstrings but my SIJ and pelvis. Once again, I'm running with my "pelvis turned left". When my R hip extension sucks, it fails to "drive it" forward on the left side. While it does over-strain the left hamstrings (as it tries to reach farther to land), it's really how the SIJ's align. If the pelvis is rotated L, there's no way the SIJs can move the way they're supposed to. The R side gets cranky (but can move a little), but the L side is totally fucked (and locked down).

So I worked my ass off to "open the pelvis R". This is why the trunk taping has historically worked: it helped to rotate the pelvis back to the R. But I'm not going back to that (though I might try a different pelvic+hip tape combo).

Post-run: "hammies' felt a lot better.

Finished my iRF article (on running with the flu), then went to Chels' house. We had a GREAT night: quick trip in the snow to TJs for some food, then yet another impromptu convo, then some terrific "quality time". Simply awesome.

Pretty good day!