Friday, June 8, 2012

Rough Weekend

Hello Runners!,
Well, after a nice 7 miler on Friday, I did a nice 25 mile bike ride with my father, helping me prepare for an upcoming cycling event, the Tour de Bago, an 84 mile bike around Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin's largest inland lake.  The bike ride went well, but it was very windy and I took the lead every time we rode into the wind.  Hey - my dad's starting to get older now and having to pull into the wind just isn't as easy for him anymore.


I woke up Sunday with some major tightness in my left groin/hamstring.  Well, scratch that planned 10 mile Sunday long run.  So I took the day off to rest.  When I woke up Monday, my groin/hamstring was a bit better, but the outside of my left heel was giving me pain.  UGH!!!!  Having taken two consecutive days off from running, I didn't want to take a third, but I did.  No way I'm going to mess around and try to run through pain that may cause a more severe injury down the road.  It's better to take an additional day or two off and let the body recover than to just run through it.


Anyway, three days off from running and a few nagging aches and pains got me itching to run again on Tuesday.  My heel was feeling fine on Tuesday, but the groin/hamstring was still a little tight.  I decided to go to track practice and at least warm-up - just to see if my leg would loosen up a bit.  Sure enough, it did.  Jay and Wheelz were planning on doing some Slow Jimmy's, so I decided to join them.  My plan was to start off at about 80% and slowly stretch out my legs, increasing pace as long as I didn't feel any additional tightness in my leg.  It took 2 Slow Jimmy's before I started to feel confident that my leg wouldn't act up.  We ended up running 1 set of 4 Jimmy's, followed by 800m of slow jog, followed by another set of 2 Jimmy's.
Splits:
Set 1: 85, 82, 82, 81 (5:30 mile)
Set 2: 79, 76


Me using "The Stick" to massage my leg/groin.
After a nice long cool-down and some leg massaging with "The Stick" and I was feeling good again.  I'm really happy with the way I handled my minor ailment/injury.  I massaged/stretched/rested and didn't push myself significantly through the pain.  The result:  A few days off from running, a few toned-back workouts, and I got back into regular training. 


On Wednesday I ran an easy 6.5 miles and felt good throughout the run.  Thursday was another track workout.  I ran two quarters (not Slow Jimmy's), both at 74 sec.  I then ran 4x200m sprints, all at 36 sec.  I'm pretty happy with how my speed is starting to increase.  


Today (Friday) I'll do an easy run, and then on Saturday I'm doing the Bellin Run 10k.  Unfortunately, forecasts are for HOT and windy.  I'll let you know how it goes.  That's all for today, get out and go everyone!  

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