This is my weekly training journal. Including it in the blog gives me a little extra accountability in the mileage department & helps me stick to my schedule. :)This week was a pretty abysmal one for mileage. I knew I was going to be super-busy traveling this past weekend, so I was prepared to sacrifice a run or two if I had to. What I wasn't prepared for was a sudden and severe relapse of the hip pain that I've spent the last four months dealing with in physical therapy. The weird thing is that it's on the other side, which has always been fine until now, and the side where I originally had the pain is still almost completely pain-free. Sigh.
I'm still rather amazed at the speed with which it went from zero (Saturday night) to limp-worthy (Sunday morning). I've long since gotten over being a martyr about running, though, so I decided to put off the easy eight-miler I had planned in favor of a day of rest.
Monday: 8 miles easy. Well; at least easy was the idea. This was the run I'd originally planned for Sunday & pushed back a day. Instead of easy, though, it ended up being profoundly miserable and frustrating for a number of reasons. First, the weather 'round these parts has been crazy windy for the last few weeks, and I am just about DONE with it. Running uphill & into the wind for four miles straight is just not any sane person's idea of fun. Second, for reasons I can't explain, my legs felt as if I'd run twenty miles the day before, rather than six miles two days before. Just no gas in the tank at all. Finally, without going into a laborious and uninteresting story, I ended up running in a pair of shoes that I thought I might be able to eek just a few more miles out of comfortably and decided about 2 miles in that I was very, very wrong and the shoes needed to be retired post haste. As a result, I also found myself dealing with lower leg and foot pain for a lot of the time as well.
This is one of those runs where a younger, less mindful version of my running self might have just blamed the whole thing on my dumb body and spent the rest of the day moping. Fortunately, I've become a bit wiser over the years when it comes to running, and more disciplined about identifying the cause(s) of a bad run rather than letting myself wallow in a general feeling of misery and failure (in this case, I think the shoes & weather were the biggest issues). So whatever; sucky runs happen. Moving on with life.
Wednesday: Originally I'd scheduled a track workout on Tuesday, but given how dead my legs were after Monday and the hip pain, I took Tuesday off & planned to do the track workout Wednesday. I was still having some pain that morning, though, & figured my body was telling me to take things just a little more gradually. By later afternoon, things had loosened up considerably, so I decided to go ahead and do a short, easy run in the neighborhood. I tried the first two in my racing flats, which seemed to confirm a suspicion I've had lately, namely that they just aren't that comfortable on concrete if I'm running slower than about 7:30/mile (most likely for form reasons). Switched to the Kayanos after two miles & did two more at a slightly faster pace (which was much more comfortable).
On Thursday, the pain was still pretty bad. As much as I want to get my mileage back up and get back in race shape, I’ve definitely learned the hard way that running through pain that’s more than minor soreness is likely to cost more in the long run than just taking a few days off and letting things heal. I spent most of Friday traveling, so I'd already carved it out as a rest day. Saturday was busy, but I could've gotten in a shorter run if I'd been up for it. Alas, the hip pain really hadn't let up at all, so I decided to err on the side of caution & skip it. This is annoying, but something I've definitely gotten better at.
Grand Total: 12 miles
Ugh. Now that's depressing. Hopefully, the hip pain will take a hike this coming week & I'll be able to get in more mileage this week. Still, for the time being, I think it’s probably best to put off adding speed work & just work on building up easy mileage. I'll probably take this week a little easier to be sure nothing serious is wrong, but hopefully I'll be able to get back up around twenty.
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