[5/20/12] Lengthy post today :) Injury updates, new training schedule updates, and preparing for the 5K color run!

First of all I would love to thank my dad's friend and co-worker Mel Cachola for your support!! Congrats to your daughter for finishing medical school as well! (somewhere I would love to be!)

Injury update: Since I haven't fully explained my injury, I'm going to do it now and explain what I have to do to fully recover. I have a sacroiliac (SI) joint problem: The sacroiliac joint is a powerful ligament that connects your spine (at the sacrum) to your pelvis/hip. My SI joint became weak due to my training so I have to learn how to balance my entire body - very Zen status if you ask me!

New training plan: Although I won't go into detail about my new training plan, here are the components of my adapted training plan that I will be doing 5-6 days a week for the next month or so:

1) Anterior upper body
2) Posterior upper body
3) Abs/back
4) Hamstring/Glut/Lower back*
5) Eliptical (45 min-1 hour)
6) Variable distance runs (5-13 miles)

For now the emphasis is going to be on strengthening my hamstrings, glut, and lower back muscles. Doing this will really help my rehab/healing process so I can get close to 100% again. Training is unfortunately very painful right now but I'm definitely listening to my body to make sure that I stay as healthy as possible.

Prepping for the 5K: The Chicago 5K color run on June 2nd! Here's a link to anyone who's interested!

http://thecolorrun.com/

My goal for the color run is to finish the race :) I'm hoping to use the race as a fun way to see whether or not my left hip is strong enough to start running longer runs again but I definitely have to work back up toward those runs I was doing earlier... Comes with the territory I guess! I'll keep everyone posted!!

On a final note... I'm almost done with my first year of medical school! I'm done on 6/6/12! I'm hoping that everything goes well ^_^.

That's all for now! Keep checking in and continue spreading the word to others who may be interested in donating to the cause! Now, more than ever, I need the love and support :) I'm very thankful to God that He is continuing to let me fight for this cause and I pray that he continues to inspire others inspire me :)

Take care!

Marc :)

[5/13/12] Updates!! Happy Mother's Day as well! :)

Injury report: I'm feeling A LOT better after taking the past 5 days off, taking some anti-inflammatory/pain meds, and doing some rehab on my left hip. One of my anatomy instructors at Rush used to be a physical therapist and was able to convincingly diagnose me and recommended a rehab program to help me get back to health!

I'm currently working on fixing a Sacroiliac (SI) joint problem by strengthening my glut/hamstring/core muscles. I also have to be aware of my stride and I'm planning on buying running inserts to provide added support during my runs. I'm going to also adapt my training schedule to begin strengthening key parts of my lower body to prevent future injury. Stay posted!

I'm really looking forward to getting back to training but I also think that taking some time off after 3 straight months of intense training was necessary! Keep praying, keep spreading the word! Gonna give it my all :)

Till next time!

Marc
:)

[5/8/12]

Before I continue I would like to sincerely thank my friend and colleague in my class Dustin! Thanks for generously supporting my cause :) Your donation marks the very first donation from our class and I'm honored :)

So... I think I'm going to have to take a short break from training because I think my body is starting to wear out from training for the past three months. I'm currently battling a couple of injuries right now: possible muscle strains in my lower left back/hip muscles and also possible groin strains. To prevent further injury, I've decided to take about a week off from training to allow my body to recover and recuperate. I will evaluate how I feel after church on Sunday and start up again from there if I'm at 100% again on that day.

These injuries came about overtime. My lower left back/hip/groin started to bother me on Friday, May 4th while my cousins were in town visiting me (which was amazing by the way!). I did a light workout this past Monday and I felt twinges of pain radiating around my lower left side. Here are my results for today's run outside:

This result is pretty disappointing. By mile 3 I started feeling a moderate pain around my lower left side. Ignoring it, I continued running for another 5.5 miles and the pain progressively got worse. I had to dramatically slow my pace (hence the resulting mile splits) and eventually I was forced to stop. After some light stretching I attempted to start again but at that point my body wasn't up for it anymore. Since I ended 2.5 miles away from home I had to limp all the way back.

I may not be able to reach my dream of achieving a 1:25:00 half marathon but I still feel that a 1:30:00 half marathon is still within my reach. This obstacle, however, has shown me how much more challenging this journey is going to get. Because of this fact... the only one I can turn to is God. I have faith that He is trying to teach me something with this injury. What it is, I have no idea... All I can do is continue praying and fighting for my day to day goals.

As a final word, I promised to make this blog as real and as honest as I can. I do this because I want to not only honor the gifts that have already been given to me, I want to make sure that you all know that I'm doing the absolute best I can to balance medical school with my training while still attempting to find time for friends and family. I will continue to move forward with this!

Marc

[5/2/12] Happy May everyone!

I just wanted to sincerely thank Kristine Lee for your incredibly generous donation!! I ended up training really hard today because I was seriously inspired by your support and I will continue to work hard!

Due to an anatomy practical in 6 days, I will spend the majority of my time in the anatomy lab studying and helping my friends and colleagues out!! I'm so humbled and honored that God gave me the experience and the background to make a significant impact on other people's ability to understand the challenging anatomy of the head and neck and I will continue to assist in any way I can! It's really the least I could do :)

My cousins, the Alicantes, are coming into town on Thursday, May 4th!! Sean and CJ are both marathon runners so we're going to do a group run together along the lakeshore (weather permitting). That's super exciting because I'll have company on my run this weekend! Until then, I'll be training in the gym because the weather is kinda muggy and rainy right now and I don't really feel like getting sick again :)

Other than that, that's all for now! May is going to be my speed and interval training month... June-August will be where I do the majority of my road work for the half marathon. Wish me luck and thank you for all of your continuing support!!

God bless,

-Marc :)