A year and a half ago, it was my daughter's fourth birthday party, a Zoom with just our family at home, though I had made a ton of appetizers and cake pops and a cake. I was sad that she was having a COVID party, but it was during the early peak of the Delta wave, and we were doing our best to have Kona's (just nuclear family) dragon-themed party with flare. I was of course super busy all day and had made all the dragon eggs and dragon cake pops with Kona's help. We were blowing out candles when my husband, Curtis pointed out to me that my parents weren't on the Zoom. I was just thinking that they had forgotten. He said that I should call, so I called my mom on video chat, thinking my parents could say happy birthday to Kona.
Tri Fit for Life: Health & Fitness for the Journey
About the blog: Tri Fit for Life started as a sports medicine, wellness, and fitness blog and has continued to evolve. About the author: Megan Long, M.D. is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician and Ironman triathlete with an interest in promoting fitness and wellness for all ages.
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
Recovery
A year and a half ago, it was my daughter's fourth birthday party, a Zoom with just our family at home, though I had made a ton of appetizers and cake pops and a cake. I was sad that she was having a COVID party, but it was during the early peak of the Delta wave, and we were doing our best to have Kona's (just nuclear family) dragon-themed party with flare. I was of course super busy all day and had made all the dragon eggs and dragon cake pops with Kona's help. We were blowing out candles when my husband, Curtis pointed out to me that my parents weren't on the Zoom. I was just thinking that they had forgotten. He said that I should call, so I called my mom on video chat, thinking my parents could say happy birthday to Kona.
Thursday, July 7, 2022
Happy July 1st
PEM Fellow Graduation 2022 |
Today I was talking with
a physician friend about everyone's nostalgic posts on residency, July 1st,
finishing graduations, etc. It occurred to me without realizing it previously
that this July 1st is PGY-10 for me. Post-(medical school)-Graduation-Year-10,
for those of you confused by all our ridiculous acronyms in this career.
Clearly I have taken the road less traveled, and parts of it did hurt, as the Kid President says. It has been an
uphill battle a lot of the time, through hurricanes, snowstorms, blackouts,
polar vortexes, disaster medicine, bouts with mortality-defining illnesses,
births and deaths...and, most recently, being on the frontlines of a global pandemic.
I was feeling quite nostalgic saying good-bye this June to the first group of
residents that I as faculty had the pleasure of mentoring towards PEM
fellowship. It's crazy to look back and see myself in their shoes. They are
excited and worried, and most of what I wanted to say to them is to be excited
about the journey before you. PEM IG Graduating Residents
In honor of ten years of post-graduate training, it seems fitting to look back on what I learned since residency. I hope that some of you will enjoy this post, no matter on what part of the journey you find yourselves. Remember, you have mentors, and you have co-residents and co-interns who will be family for the next 3 to 10 to 20 to forever years, you never know. Even better, the people outside of medicine that stick with you on this journey, that put up with the sleep-deprived and over-worked version of yourself, those are your people. Hold onto them.
Violet & Curtis visiting me on a 28-hour call (because I left the hospital too late the night before to get to see her before bedtime and wouldn't see her for three days...) |
For what it's worth, here are
7 Residency Truths:
Residency Truth #1: Naps and Strategic Caffeine.
Dr. Burks at PGY-1 Trip to the Bronx Zoo
My program director,
Auxford Burks taught me that residency is all about naps and strategic caffeine. As a shift worker, as a frontliner during this pandemic, and as a
nocturnist of the last two years (stay tuned for a blog about how sleep is the
ultimate self-care), this advice has served me very well. One of my favorite
night nurses and I always joke about how we look forward to our evening
pre-work coffee. For me, it often comes after a nap or after getting the kids
to bed, even though I already had coffee in the morning. If you don't do
coffee, do exercise when possible, even if it's just a walk. Endorphins are
endorphins, friends.
Residency Truth #2: Hold or feed a baby.
The best part of NICU was the feeder-growers and my co-intern, Rushita Mehta, M.D. |
Another Auxford Burks original. This may be a bit Peds specific, but it’s hard to feel like life’s problems can’t be fixed, or at least overcome, when you have new life in your hands. If you are lucky enough to have specialized in Peds or OB, you know where the nursery is, and they usually don’t mind if you offer to sit and feed a baby. During the hardest days, our PD said he would just go by the nursery and offer to feed a baby. Endorphins. Cute little life form that you are cuddling. An instant sense of hope for that baby and for you to make the world better for it by continuing to do what motivated you to start this journey.
Residency Truth #3:Intern Dream Team with Huma & Carly
Do Something for You.
Maybe holding babies isn’t for you.
That’s cool. I learned from my co-resident, Huma Mirza that sometimes self-care
and doing something that you are passionate about outside of work is more
important than going straight to bed when you get home from the hospital. She
said that she would often sleep less so that she could do what she needed to do
to be a better doctor when she was in the hospital, even if that was lounging
on the couch watching TV. It was her way of not losing herself in all of the
sacrifices that this journey requires. When you don't know who you are anymore
and have nothing left outside of the hospital, you have no real energy or
optimism left for your patients. Never truer words.
We
are altruistic people by nature, but when we give up so much to serve others,
we get lost in the process and forget how to be good for our patients. It
starts with being good for yourself first. In a similar manner, it is important
for parents to take care of themselves, so that they can take care of their
kids. No one understands this more than doc-moms and doc-dads; we push the
limits every day, trying to fit more in and do more and be more.
All the Residency Babies |
Sometimes it is important just to be there for yourself. As a resident, I was constantly training for triathlons and marathons or going for post-call runs or swims or getting up for a kettle bell workout before a 28-hour call. I was a nutjob. But, I will say, now that I'm older, while I do value those workouts, I never underestimate Truth #1 followed or preceded by a nice long walk. Everything is easier and clearer after a nice long walk.
Orchard Beach Picnic, PGY-3 |
Residency Truth #4: Remember where you started.
Residency Truth #5: See the Beauty.
Travel and do Global Health and get out of town or see your town when you can, but there may be a lot of days where seeing the sun out of the hospital isn’t a thing... So, find a window, find a courtyard, find a retreat on a long call. Seek out your own silver linings, even if it’s just bonding with your team doing the silly stuff that gets you through it, ordering on-call food, teaching each other, believing in each other, playing practical jokes.
This NICU window was a great reading spot in between deliveries and the viewpoint for many sunsets and sunrises. I can remember it fondly, as well as my team and my seniors that got us through it all.
Residency Truth #6: Expect and accept failure.
<---This tire is a crazy blow-out
I had on the way to work one morning. My co-intern said, “Wow, you really don’t
do anything halfway, do you?” Nope. Fail big, learn big, folks. You have people
to help you.
Hermann's Finest |
Residency Truth #7: Listen to the people that know it all.
In case anyone is
wondering, it's the nurses. They will pull you to the bedside, they will
address their concerns with you, they will catch the majority of your
sleep-deprived wrong orders that you have placed in the computer. They'll teach
you so much about compassion in medicine and about procedures and how teams
work. Approach them with grace and thank them for what they do for you in your
training and what they do for our patients.
Alright, friends. Congratulations. It's July 1st. Good luck on your journey, wherever you may be.
Monday, January 11, 2021
2021 moving around this merry-go-round'
Not even going to get into the recent national events but a little personal event left me with a new hurdle for rehab, on top of all the mental hurdles many of us have faced in the last year. My insurance isn't paying for physical therapy anymore. Just paying copays was over-budget for us, so I'm not able to do self pay and continue with formal PT. I guess I knew this day would come, but I had just hoped it would be farther away since I'm not even 7 months out from my most recent surgery which was a full-on total knee reconstruction with osteochondral transplants x 2, and also because I've had 6 surgeries in the last 15 months. I think it would be really easy to be angry about it. It would probably make sense to sue my initial surgeon for the post-op infection that led to all this. I am against doing so on ethical principle, but so many times dealing with insurance companies and medical billing and paying bill after bill over the last 15 months I have definitely thought about it. I wasted 2 days on the phone with the insurance company last week and now I'm ready to turn towards self-reliance for a while and just keep moving, as much as possible, as well as possible, which has basically been the goal over the last year+.
So I am entering a second phase of home, mostly self-designed and definitely self-motivated, PT. The first phase being during lockdown when my PT practice discharged everyone to home PT whether they were ready or not, because the city was shutdown for COVID. Ironically numbers are higher than ever before and we have no ICU beds, but we will just keep everything open and status quo apparently, a whole other story, probably not even one to share on another day.
So here I am with my kiddos doing home PT. It's definitely never the workout I set out to do and there has to be flexibility; much like expectations for regular life days with them, we all just have to adapt! I have been doing about one home session a week with Kona during the holiday break anyway, so she's my go-to workout buddy. Though I know the mental therapy of the workout isn't the same, I do really enjoy the time we have together, just us 2, but lately it has been a group thing and a little more chaotic. PT was really my only self-care and time away from kids where I wasn't napping or working nights in the ED. I think I will miss it. BUT I have so much to be thankful for, including the strength level that working 3 days a week in PT has brought me to~ a point where something like this Magical moment can transpire...
Last week I went for a long park walk with the girls and when my knee started hurting, I suggested doing laps around this one area of the path that is a circle. I timed them and shouted out their times, and they were having a blast racing each other and themselves to get faster at scooter laps. I offered to go with them after resting a while, but Kona was so into it that she said, "No!! You have to be the timer!!!" Two days later when my PT was cancelled we went out again, and I told Kona I would time but would also go with Juno. I started running next to her, only for short intervals, about the amount I can do right now.
I have never seen a brighter face on Kona.
"MOMMY'S RUNNING!!" she screamed, and ran towards me with her arms outstretched like we always used to do to give big running hugs. This was my first time running outside since August 2019 and my first time running in front of them for that long too. She said, "We are getting stronger!" hand on her hip and water-bottle-drinking with the other. She then said, "When we get back home, I'm going to tell Daddy that Mommy was running!!" Then of course the first person she told was her older sister, Violet.
Kona: Violet, guess what !? Mommy was running on the sidewalk!!!
Violet: Mommy, you can run?!!!
M: Only a little bit at a time.
Violet: We need to celebrate!!!
M: I'm so happy how proud you guys are 💜
[Because they know the journey this has been]
Excited for the challenges of the next phase of this journey... because I know with great obstacles come greater transformations.
"The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it." ~Moliere
Monday, October 5, 2020
the good, the bad, the ugly... & the recovery of a lifetime
Posting this here because though i thought i could write something pivotal and publish in some journal, there are already too many doctor-as-patient pieces out there and i have other projects i need to work on rather than try to edit this and make it beautiful. so, here are my original words without editors and re-writes....
last medal pre-MRSA, May 2019 |
10.5.2020
A
year. A full year since I crutched into hospital where I work, just like I was
there for a shift, but instead I was there to say that I thought I needed a
work-up and the pain was just too bad. That’s when I start the clock of MRSA
septic arthritis, though it had brewed for about 10 days at that point. When I
took off my bandage in front of the NP who was seeing me as a patient and not a
fellow for the first time, my knee was red and swollen, and pus drained out and
pooled onto the floor. Well, THAT looks infected, doesn’t it? It
hadn’t looked like that at home, but I had screamed when my daughter barely
grazed my leg at breakfast that morning, because the pain was so bad. I had
been up several nights in pain, but thought I just had to solider through since
I had gone to an Ortho clinic visit that same week and was told it wasn’t
infected. In the ED, I waited on my labs, calculated my Kocher Criteria
(clinical diagnostic criteria for the likelihood of septic arthritis), and
turned to my husband and asked him to go get my laptop from home, so I could do
my research project in the hospital because, I told him, “I’m not going home.”
It’s so hard to accept it when you, as a physician, become a
patient. The journey of the last year is not one I would repeat. I got a
post-op infection from an outpatient knee scope. I hadn’t had a normal knee to
begin with, after a congenital bone disease, playing college ball after I had
been told I couldn’t play sports at age 13, and then going on to do Ironman
races. I had been beating up on that knee for a long time. But it had kept
going and just needed a little meniscectomy and loose body removal to get back
to regular life, which is for me very active. The cost of it all, of going at
such a fast pace and never taking care of myself or slowing down, was MRSA, a
resistant bacteria. Maybe MRSA was just the 1 in 1,000 complication of surgery,
and I was the lucky one who got to have a real life-check that day and every
day for the next year. That, or it turns out you really can’t work like a
resident forever, be a mom of 3, and race endurance races without sufficient
rehab and strength training. Oh, and sleep. You can’t do it without sleep, at
least not for long.
I don’t do anything halfway, and my body and MRSA were no
different. It took 3 open knee surgeries with washouts to sufficiently clean
out the joint, prior to IV antibiotics for 8 weeks and 2 more weeks of oral
antibiotic. My ESR, a laboratory marker of inflammation, stayed high, over 100,
for a long time. I had so many adhesions that I needed another surgery, towards
the end of my course of IV antibiotics, just to get my knee moving again; I
couldn’t bend past 20 degrees. I had spent 2 months in excruciating pain,
unable to tolerate even my daughter or husband bumping against the bed or chair
my leg was propped on. I could never sleep, waking every hour or two in pain. I
also lost the majority of my muscle mass, about 30+ pounds from the nausea and
abdominal pain caused by the antibiotics. I couldn’t eat and took multiple
other medications to be able to tolerate fluids. I was anemic from surgical
blood loss and weak. I fainted a lot, which led to more time not moving around,
and more weight loss. The infection and the treatment became one big spiral of
loss, not even considering the toll it took on my psyche. The worst of it was
that the inside of my knee was so friable, that I actually tore my ACL and had
a severe tear of the meniscus that had been frayed prior to the infection.
Because I was medical and a fellow in the ED, my Ortho Trauma surgeon showed me
video of him ranging my knee in the OR and how the meniscus just flopped off in
the joint, back-and-forth, barely attached to anything. He said it was similar
to the incision they made to repair tibial plateau fractures. Cool, I
thought. Then, man, that sucks.
Maybe that wasn’t the worst. The worst was a tie between
being away from my kids for 11 days and being an adult inpatient. As someone
who has spent the last 10+ years in the field of pediatrics, I obviously love
kids and value the way we pediatricians care for our patients. It’s not that
internists and adult surgeons don’t care about their patients. It’s all just
different. Maybe more adult wings should have Child Life. Just putting that one
out there. I had good nurses and not-so-good nurses. I had techs that I was so
very thankful for and truly valued the pride they took in their job, the
professionalism with which they helped debilitated folk like myself do
demoralizing things like pee and poop on a bed pan or just try to move enough
to get sheets changed in the hospital when any movement of your body causes
excruciating, mind-numbing pain. I definitely asked for an above knee amputation multiple times, and the Ortho residents were really good about not rolling their eyes at me. I logically thought that it would be great weight-reduction for racing with a blade later, and a good way to end the pain...until I mentioned it to one of my favorite trauma nurses overnight and asked her about amputees and phantom limb pain. She said that they have to treat their pain with opioids, but then they also beat on the stump and say, "I end here, I end here, I end here," over and over again to learn that they don't have their limb anymore. I guess for me that was a moment of remembering all the horrible traumas we see and knowing that I don't end here, even though a lot of our patients do. I followed in the Ortho Trauma clinic, so I saw even more of the repercussions of what we manage in the ED. Eye-opening to say the least.
When
someone sees you with your PICC line and crutching on a walker and having to
stop to rest, that person with hardware in one leg and one leg missing as well
as a splinted hand is sure to give you words of encouragement and tell you
their story, too. I went through a lot, but many of our patients go through
more with less resources and more obstacles. As a medical professional, I knew
how to advocate for myself, but it wasn’t easy. In the hospital, I remember
desperately trying to do so but being too groggy on pain meds to think
straight. I couldn’t sleep from pain and from being woken up for vital signs
and various rounds. I was febrile and septic and nauseated from all the general
anesthesia that I got in one week’s time. The day I found out that I had torn
my meniscus (I didn’t know about the ACL until much later, and we still aren’t
sure when that happened.), I was really down. Non-weight-bearing for 6 weeks
sounded like one more hurdle that I didn’t have time for, which is now
hilarious, because I was on crutches for months and months due to the infection
and the pain. In that moment, however, I was upset that I would have a harder
time being a PEM fellow and being a mom of 3 on crutches for 6 weeks. Little
did I know the journey I had in front of me.
I
was deflated. I missed my kids. I was crying alone in my hospital room. The
floor environmental services (EVS) lady came in as chipper as always to clean
my room and saw me tearful. She gave me a pep-talk. My EVS lady! She has no
clue how much those words helped me. I still think about it to this day, even
though I don’t even remember her exact words, I remember how she lifted me up
during a very dark time. You better believe, especially now during the time of
COVID, I thank every EVS person I see, every shift. I like to think I would do
it anyway, but after what happened to me, and what they do for us and everyone
in the hospital now with COVID, I feel a deeper sense of gratitude. They are
keeping us all safe, and they do such a thankless job in the hospital. If
nothing else from this whole experience, I appreciate my perspective on that. I
appreciate how being a patient made me see and feel the way all our medical
provider decisions come to light and how important ancillary staff are in
caring for patients and helping patients feel actually cared for. I
always try to sit down with families and play with my kid patients in the ED or
hold babies and talk directly to them. I want them to know I care, but I also
just love kids, and that's why I'm a pediatrician. I now realize that those
moments of humanity are even more important to families during their difficult
times in our hospitals.
There
were so many ups and downs on this journey, and they keep coming even now. I
definitely had moments of being more positive than my doctors about my
condition. At my first ID (infectious disease) follow-up appointment, I told my
ID doc that my nights were like having a newborn because I woke up every 1-2
hours, except instead of breastfeeding a crying baby, I was screaming out
myself in pain. He was worried about my inflammatory markers because my CRP was
79 at that first visit. I mentioned to him that in the ED it had been 256 and
that it was trending down. I said, "Maybe you need to be a more
glass-is-half-full kind of guy." That was the good and the bad of it. The
ugly was that I still couldn't bend my knee. Even after another surgery to lyse
adhesions (scar tissue from so many surgeries and the healing from the
infection itself), I still had such a swollen knee even a month out from that
surgery. My knee was just angry. Part of me was, too, but with so many
obstacles, you really have to look on the bright side and celebrate the small
victories, like putting shoes on without wincing in pain, washing your own
hair, or being able to walk. My Ortho doc drained 100cc of fluid off at my
first post-op visit from surgery #7, the lysis of adhesions, and we both looked
at each other, thinking the same thing—he said to me, "At least it's not
pus." Maybe that's my mantra for life after this. At least my knee
isn't full of pus.
I have COVID, but at least my knee isn't full of pus.
Still getting medical bills, but at least my knee isn't full of
pus.
I'm so behind on life, but at least my knee isn't full of
pus.
I think I tore my rotator cuff, but at least my knee isn't
full of pus.
I
look back at pictures over the past year, and the saddest part is how much I
feel like I missed of my kids’ lives. Forget that I spent a year not running, a
year in pain, months wondering if I would ever walk again, AND that I’m still
wondering if I can ever be a triathlete again or can run for my mental and
physical health, something that was once so intrinsic to me being me. I missed
a gap in my girls’ lives that I won’t get back. I read to them, I watched
movies with them, and I tried to sit and watch them play, but none of those
things could I do for very long without breaking away to cry in pain. I
couldn’t take care of them the way I normally would for months. I was groggy
and weak and depressed.
CPM cuddles and my PICC line is finally out. Things are starting to look up. December 2019. |
We
all had an emotional journey together. Just as I had to accept my disability
and lack of control over the circumstances of my life, and search to maintain
my sense of identity and self, they also had to find their mom in the disabled
person that I was. My 3-year-old would tell me, “Mommy, soon your leg will get
better, and then you will be back to being Mommy again.” Even still, she talks
about the activities we will do when I am better. They had regressions and
progressions this whole time just like I did. I just had my 8th knee
surgery in June, an osteochondral transplant, ACL reconstruction, and meniscus
repair. I told my kids ahead of time what to expect. My baby made me the
happiest by actually wanting to cuddle with me this time around. When she was
13 months old last year, she didn’t want anything to do with me because I
couldn’t go anywhere with her, and it broke me. This past summer, just shy of 2
years old, she would sit with me while I ranged my knee in the CPM, and her two
older sisters would sit as close to me as possible. Somehow, the continuous
passive motion machine and my crutches, surgical sleeve, and brace had become
our normal. They know what physical therapy is. They know about crutches and
walkers. They know that Mommy needs to ice. But none of them remember when
Mommy used to go running, and that’s what bothers me the most when I think
about the new direction my life might take now.
Post-op surgery #8, June 2020 |
Over the last few years, I had a goal to do an Ironman as a mom. I ran through most of my pregnancies, and I even pushed Kona in the jogging stroller for runs when pregnant with Juno. As a second-opinion Olympic Team orthopedic surgeon told me when she recommended I give up on my knee and look toward a total knee replacement, “You’ve always been an athlete.” I was only doing short races during fellowship and was just getting back to running after baby 3 when I got my MRSA. I spent so much of the last year in the worst pain of my life, and I am still healing and rehabbing. Now I’ve had time to reflect. Do I really want to prove this to myself, one more Ironman? And would the person I am even stop at one? Do I want to prove that I can do the scheduling and the lack of sleep and the strategic nutrition that training for an Ironman while being a full-time doc and mom to 3 growing girls would take? Do I want to be gone from them for that long? My new orthopedist, one of the top in the country (My knee and I don’t mess around anymore.) seems to think that I could do as much as I want after the 12 to 18 months of rehab that this most recent surgery takes. I’m on month 4, by the way. I am 8 months away from even contemplating the start of an Ironman training schedule.
CPM snuggles with my June Bug |
Like so many athletes now, though, I am in limbo, and not just due to my injuries and rehab. Who is to say we will have a return to normal sports any time soon with the COVID-19 pandemic? It’s hard to say what returning to my sport would be for many reasons. Maybe my knee couldn’t do the training, maybe the newly diagnosed arthritis in my shoulder would mean I have to give up the zen of swimming and therefore triathlon, too. Maybe I had my heyday in the sun and now it’s time to move on. Perhaps the only racing any of us will be doing is virtual, and then maybe conflicts with kid and work schedules won’t even be an issue anyway. Well, where’s the challenge in that?
If I can be selfish and truly honest for a moment, I just miss the mental high and clarity that comes from running. That sense of inner calm and focus that I have for the whole rest of the day. The last 2 weeks in physical therapy I have been increasing my Alter-G percentage, the amount of body weight and therefore impact on the joints that I do while running. This fancy treadmill that blows up like a balloon holds you suspended in spandex that zip into the bubble, just as weightless as you set the machine. Running at 70% makes me feel like an astronaut in space. Like Flo-Jo flying down the track, or Steve Prefontaine doing "an easy 10", I feel like I could run for hours. Then, last Friday, I ran three one-minute intervals at full weight-bearing on the regular treadmill. I hurt (more than usual) for several days afterward. That was my first run in over a year. After knee surgeries 1, 2, and 5-7, I never really expected to run again. I have made miracles happen on this knee so many times, but I have spent the last year thinking that I need to retire and give up the one thing that makes me me. I know now that I am more than a triathlete, and I know that I can get good workouts from low-resistance exercise, but there’s something in me that still wants to run. I wanted an amputation to run. I just underwent one of the most intense reconstructive surgeries with the longest rehab in the hopes that I might still run, even though it meant putting myself and my family through all those regressions all over again. Somedays I can hear, “You ARE an Ironman,” in my head and actually think about making it to the finish line of another one. And some days, I feel the weight of it all, and all the pain and sacrifices don’t seem worth it. The “anything is possible” slogan might have to refer to the fact that I can be as active as I want with my kids and stay in shape with low-impact exercise, instead of being the athlete I was before. Time to find another sport?
Alter-G: First Run in over a year!
Sunday, October 4, 2020
La Vie en Rose: Lessons in Endurance Training_4.17.19
Juno is here! 8/2018 |
Family trip with rose-colored glasses |
1. la vie en rose
Seeing the world through rose colored glasses. The title of this blog comes from a moment the other day with my girls when Violet was trying on my sunglasses inside (while we were trying to eat breakfast and get off to school nonetheless), and she told me, "Mommy, do you know when you look at the light through these, it's pink?" She was right. My cheap drug store sunglasses that are now all scratched from being around these kiddos do have a pink tint to them that I had never noticed before. I played the song "La Vie en Rose" for them and we pretended we were eating at a French cafe, and we talked about seeing things in a positive light. There is nothing more important in endurance training or in life than staying positive. I am honestly so bad at this, but I am working on it. There are so many setbacks and obstacles in training, and you will help yourself out by not letting yourself get bogged down by one bad mile, one bad run, one off week, etc. My Numa sports glasses that I have actually been wearing for racing for the past 10 years are rose tinted sunglasses. How funny that just now I am seeing the symbolism in that and hoping it will keep me positive and not allow myself to be my toughest critic.
2. Don't expect perfection
This lead me to my next lesson- don't expect perfection. Not out of yourself but also not out of your training. As someone who has had Ironman races cancelled for hurricanes and done marathon training in thunderstorms, racing and training is never perfect. Don't plan your training schedule or your life too much. Go with the flow
Running at 30 weeks pregnant pushing my Kona Bean in 103 F Houston heat |
3. Don't be embarrassed by your pace
Everyone is running a different race, has different obstacles, has different goals. You don't need to compare yourself or push yourself beyond reason. I am the worst at this. I want to be a better version of me- the doctor me, the mom me, the wife me, and the athlete me. Dude, something's gotta give. I finally accepted that I am going to run this race at a pace that is embarrassing to me, but I also could very easily be not training at all or waiting for the right time to jump back in, and honestly folks, with that mentality, it may never come. Maybe I'm never going to have an endurance pace of 9-minute-miles (I used to lust after 8 or 7-minute-milers.), but I'm out there getting my runner's high, and that in and of itself is really enough right now. Because I finally accepted my pathetic pace, I had a really strong pace run today because I wasn't chasing a pace the whole time that was too much for me. Getting faster is something I will do after this race. It's okay to set these kind of goals for ourselves, especially when you haven't been racing. You aren't going to be able to do endurance and speed training in your program unless you're already up to snuff. This is my first time running postpartum without knee rehab first. Mistake? Not yet anyway. :-\
4. Treat your allergies and wash your hair after workouts! -
Flonase. It's class C in pregnancy, which I guess is why I haven't used it in so long, but my life is forever changed from starting this medicine again 3 weeks ago. Turns out not blowing snot rockets your entire run is very uplifting. Bad allergies? Take Zyrtec, Singulair, and Flonase. Works great for asthma, too, since Zyrtec and Singulair work synergistically in allergic asthma, and flonase has been shown to improve asthma as well.
Wash your hair. This is so time consuming and annoying, especially busy parents and others who find themselves barely having time to fit in the run much less the shower, but washing the allergens off after running including getting them out of your hair and nose (Neti pot or Sinus rinse anyone?) is key to ensuring that you don't sleep in a carpet of pollen on your pillow that will keep you stuffy all night and into the next day. Curly hair? Use a cleansing conditioner so you don't dry out your hair! I love Amika :)
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Tips for Spring Training
Tips for Spring Training -
1. Embrace the Awesome
having a blurry fun time and ready for spring swimming!!!! |
2. Stay hydrated
This goes without saying, but you may forget how much hydration you need to bring with you for workouts or how to replenish afterward. With warmer weather, there is more sweating, more salt loss, and hydration and rehydration become even more important. A good rule of thumb is that your pee should be clear prior to your workout (concentrated urine that looks darker is a sign of dehydraton). More than an hour of strenuous exercise in the heat means an electrolyte replacement drink after, and you should have a protein and carbohydrate meal/snack within 30 minutes of endurance training if possible, to maintain muscle mass and properly replenish glycogen stores.
3. Don't Forget the Sunscreen
Athletes are the biggest culprits of not using sunscreen. You think you have a base tan, you think you want a base tan, you think you don't burn easily...well you're all wrong!
Watch this enlightening video with an ultraviolet camera, showing how sun exposure affects your skin.
Dandelions on the soccer field? Those are ok...right, Violet? |
This should be up to the schools and the coach for youth sports, but sometimes things are getting revamped when they need to be. Make sure things are up to snuff before your kid heads out on the playing field. Adults, you should know better when you are playing sports later in life.
6. Check equipment
Wondering where her sun hat is while playing ball. |
I am so bad about leaving my bike on the trainer and letting the front tire go totally flat, and then as soon as the weather turns nice, I get frustrated when it takes me an hour to get everything ready to go for an outdoor ride. BUT, it is definitely worth it to pump the tires, check air pressure, make sure your flat kit has everything you need, and that everything is functioning properly since your last time out. This goes for every sport, especially for kids. Make sure they have the right equipment to help prevent injuries.
7. Consider body type and any changes
That bike is too big for you, Violet! |
8. Know your stuff!
This is supposedly going to be a great website for parents especially to check what sports need what prep prior to gearing up for spring training or any season, for that matter. However, right now it is still under construction. Check back later and see what info they add: stopsportsinjuries.com.
9. Try something new
A great way to cross-train is to keep yourself doing some different sports at different times of year. Yes, we all have that sport that we love the most, but getting better sometimes means a little time of from it, and this gives you time to enjoy something else! This is also a good way to avoid over-use-injuries. We should probably have a couple blogs on those coming up.
10. Be inspired
We love animals and we love running! Help us support the Bronx Zoo!!!!!!! :-D |
References:
Von Duvillard et al. Fluids and hydration in prolonged endurance performance. Nutrition. 2004 Jul-Aug;20(7-8):651-6.
On deck:
-Back Pain (I am not forgetting you, Charles! we Will try to do this one next)
-Overuse Injuries
-Neurodevelopment and Youth Sports Training
-Ankle exam and injuries for providers
-Knee exam and injuries for providers