Back running!

This morning, while most of my teammates were stepping on the charter bus to Seattle and are getting ready for their indoor-races this weekend, I struggled through a 70 minutes run that was barely under 8min/mile, thanks to an extremely sore body. That may not sound very nice, but people close to me know that this is great news. Of course I'm sad that I'm not ready to race yet, but I'm heading in the right direction! After a week without running post-Nationals I developed hip-issues after my very first run back. Although I''ve had issues with my hips on and off for the last few years (mostly overuse issues, such as the piriformis syndrome), I was always able to keep it under control with exercises and foamrolling. This time though, my hipflexors got so painful I had to stop running, and I also developed a sore spot at my right hipbone that wouldn’t go away. Long story short: I took time off, started building up again just before Christmas break, reinjured myself, went back to crosstraining, and finally, just before the break was over and I returned to Portland, I got the green light to start running again. I built up from 10 minutes to 16 minutes to almost an hour by the end of the first week, could run an hour every day for the second week and got to do some strides, and this week, I got to do two workouts, which explains my sore legs. Running is hard people, especially when you are out of shape and your body isn’t used to it anymore!

My friends, family, and teammates know that I am not the most fun person to be around when injured and I'm sorry for that – I just don’t handle it very well. I don’t like crosstraining, I don’t like being inside, I hate having to worry about what I can and cannot do, and it's hard to cancel all the fun plans I made (racing the Sylvestercross at home, pacing my dad in his half-marathon, training with the people at my club and with my dad and sister, missing the first two indoormeets, having to forget about trying to qualify for Indoor Nationals etc.). In some ways though, I was very lucky. First, Nick came to the Netherlands with me: he first took me on an amazing trip to Oslo, Norway, and then joined me for almost all of my crosstraining: indoor-biking, outdoor-biking, rowing machine, and core, they are all much better with company! Also, it was – as it always is – incredible to be home, and we did lots of fun stuff that made it impossible for me to be in a bad mood all the time ;) The last week at home we actually went to Limburg, in the south of the country, where we mountainbiked in the hills (yes, we do have them in certain parts of the country!). That was incredibly fun and almost better than running!

Back in Portland we got about half a meter of snow the day after I arrived, and were forced to spend over a week on treadmills and upstairs in ‘Chiles’, the tiny indoortrack. Believe me, running an hour on a 240 meter short indoortrack is just as boring as biking, so I could no longer feel sorry for myself!

Right now, I am just really grateful to be running again. I'm excited I get to work out with all my teammates and I'm enjoying every run or core-session! For now, I will only be running singles, building up to about 70 miles a week and replacing second runs by crosstraining. But when you had to crosstrain for 90 or so minutes every day, 3 or 4 hours per week is not so bad anymore! Also, I get to watch new episodes from ‘Wie is de Mol’ every week from my bike/elliptical, which is really fun! For my international friends: Wie is de Mol is an incredible popular tv-show in the Netherlands, and this year’s edition was filmed in Portland! I would be curious to see if Portland is going to see a spike in Dutch tourists in the next year. For my Dutch friends: Portland is just as beautiful as in the show! The Powell’s Bookstore is awesome, the beach (where we had teamcamp the last two years) is beautiful, the city is great, come visit!

I am hoping to blog a little bit more often in the next months. It’s crazy this is my last semester at UP – please don’t keep reminding me of that because I can’t believe I'm actually leaving this city soon. On the other hand, with the current President and his crazy ideas it might not be a bad thing that I am leaving soon – Yes, the people here in Portland are just as concerned about him as everyone in the Netherlands is. Last weekend we went to the Women’s March and we didn’t even actually get to march because the entire route was filled with people – 100.000 of them!

If I don't have any more setbacks I will be racing the next 2 indoor-races in Seattle. This will mainly be to get myself in shape for the outdoorseason as it is hard to get in really good shape in 2 vs 4 weeks, but I am just happy I get to run in the Dempsey facility two more times! After that, it looks like we are going to the Stanford Invitational and the Mt Sac Invitational. I am probably running the 5km at 1 of them, and the 1500m at the other. But for now, I am just focused on the daily process of getting back in shape and taking care of my hips!