Starting Over

A week later and some reflection later… well… I am still bummed that I missed my goal. The long runs I had been doing up until I got injured had me where I needed to be to complete my goal

But… my body had other plans.

Nearly 6 full years of running and without a doubt, I have learned at least one thing… It’s not always your race/training day. Running isn’t always easy and there are lots of highs and lows that come with the territory. Sometimes you have an excellent run and everything clicks and then the next day everything can go to hell.

My last long run before getting injured was that… one of those perfect running days where everything clicked. I ran 11 miles in roughly 1:45 which meant I would still have 30 minutes to cover 2.1 miles… I was THERE

So close yet so far away

The next day everything went to hell and I just couldn’t maintain the training that I needed to stay where I was.

My calf healed intake for the race but something had been giving me trouble off and on for about a year reared its ugly head again… 6 days before the race

Perfect timing

I saw my PT once before the race and she told me that it could be a mile strain… like the calf

Well… fan-bloody-tastic

During the race I had pain so bad in my right knee that I thought finishing was going to be a bigger a struggle than I ever considered. Determination and anger took over and blocked the pain so I could finish the race.

I opted to take the next two days off completely. Knowing before I even started that race that I had barely run over the previous 6 weeks and was about to take on 13.10 miles… I knew I was going to hurt a LOT after that race.

And oh boy did I hurt. Monday was brutal and I didn’t start to feel loose until after I had spent a solid 10 minutes with my foam roller when I got home for work.

Tuesday I was feeling better but the pain in the knee was still there off and on and the hamstring/glute was still a huge issue. Even though I felt like I could put in a nice easy mile, I opted to take the day off again until I spoke with my PT

I do in fact have a strain in my hamstring… and the pain in my right knee is caused by some scar tissue build up… No clue when I got scar tissue in my knee… but that had been acting up off and on since March

After speaking with my PT about my calf being the only thing that didn’t hurt and the issues I was having in my hamstring and the intense pain I felt in my knee during the race, I knew that I would be spending some more time in PT.

So that’s where I am at… I will stick with PT a few weeks more to deal with these two lingering issues

Which brings to the main point of the post… Since I do have these issues it best to deal with them and take it easy on the mileage

And really… I have barely run over the past 7 weeks so it doesn’t make sense to try to jump back in the level of training I was at.

I have plenty of time before any significant race is on the schedule so I am going to use the time to get back to basics.

The rest of the year will be low mileage… November will be the month of one milers… and maybe a two or three miler once a week as a “long run”. In December I will move on to two milers with, again, a three or maybe even a 4 miler thrown in.

But for the most part it’s very low mileage from here on out while continuing to address the issues I have. Hopefully, by the time the new year rolls around, I will be all fixed and able to start training the way I want to.

To add to all of this, I am going to be doing a LOT more strength training in my future.

I am also playing with the idea of swimming once a week and/or doing yoga once a week. The tight calves are likely going to remain an issue and doing yoga will help to keep them a little looser. Swimming… well… it might be a good idea to do some form of cardio that is much lower impact.

The yoga and swimming are really just an idea that I am toying with… nothing decided on either of those yet but I might give it a try to see how it fits in.

But first… I need to get my hamstring and knee happy again… those are the priorities

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