That's a Pisser

The "tightness" I was feeling in my hamstring was exactly that, and worse. On Monday I attempted to head out for a super easy shake out run with my plan of being near the 30 minute mark for a total. I made it a grand total of 24 minutes and I was once again reduced to a walk the remainder of the distance home. Lots of explicits to vent, good thing it was 5:30 in the morning as there are very few soles out there stomping the pavement.

I have taken the remainder of the week off of running and had one Chiro treatment  as well as one hour massage, along with plenty of stretches to go with the week!

The most frustrating part of all this is I am being smart and not overdoing it in any way. I have listened to my body and really been in tune with whats going on. My leg has been great and bam! in one or two runs I am out of commish again. Once again I am reduced to running as much as I can slowly... I only hope this all ends soon.

On a side note, I think someone pissed on my tires...

Hammies Hurtin'

This week has been a nice progression. I gave myself one rest day and continued to run near an hour a day and a bit more on the weekend days. I plan to move up to get my two medium distance runs and longer efforts on the weekend within a months time. The main hurdle for this to happen seems to be a nagging hamstring that just will not let me progress to decent mileage. There seems to be some underlying problem that has yet to be discovered and now, more than ever, I need to figure it out!

Both runs this weekend had a little bit of hamstring tightness and keeping me from cranking up the pace too much.

Here is how the week looked:

Monday: 47:00  6.1 miles
              easy jogging to stretch out the legs

Tuesday: 1:02:00  8.2 miles

Wednesday: 51:45  7.1 miles

Thursday: 0 miles rest day

Friday: 1:01:00 8.1 miles *last mile at 6:00 pace
            super foggy out!

Saturday: 1:45:00  10.5 miles  *Jay Cooke Trails

Sunday: 2:20:00  18.2 miles roads

Weeks Total: 58.2 miles (6 days)
Years Total: 520.5 miles

Tee Shirts and Sunshine

Friday morning I made my way out and did a short out and back on Skyline. Nothing special about it. Just recovery miles.

This weekend was two marvelous days of running. Saturday a small group hit some very wet snowmobile trails that turned out to be a swamp run but none-the-less we had many laughs and much fun! Thanks to Dave, Dodgeball, and the Deb. For most of the run I actually ran without a shirt on and nearly caused many car accidents because of it.

This morning I had a group of five come to our house in order to hit some consistent road miles and get aide at the half-way point. We did a two loop course and once again, running in shorts and a tee in March just isn't right. My legs felt fair and towards the end of the run I had my right thigh start crying for mercy and to stop. I made it a total of 2 hours and near 16 miles. I have some more work to do on the leg but soon I hope to be jamming the miles and finally getting fit! Thanks to Eric, Tony, Dave and Dave. Great run!

Totals:
Friday: 6 miles
Saturday: 9 miles
Sunday: 16 miles

Weeks Total: 54 miles
Years Total: 462.3 miles

Dear Right Leg, I'm Gonna Win!!

I managed to have some decent miles last weekend and I rewarded my quad with a day of rest on Monday. I really had no choice as I was quite sore and very tired from the lack of sleep all weekend. I still got up and did a few subtle stretches then did a long ICE session on my quad, then a hot shower. I woke up Tuesday feeling refreshed and ready to rip it. The daily running has remained quite simple as of late and will remain the same until there is vast improvement in the range of motion in my quad. (still a bit limiting and very bruised) Until then, daily mileage is key and I will do my best to be ready to pound some pavement come June 3rd in Minneapolis.

Here is how my week has progressed thus far:

Mon: 0 miles (rest and rehab)
Tues: 55:50  7.2 miles
Wed: 47:35   6.2 miles   (icy roads)
Thurs: 1:10:33   9.7 miles

Snow Today...Gone Tomorrow

Not literally but pretty darn close. Last Saturday we received close to 15" of fresh powder on top of the 12" we had received a few days prior to that. That would be the entire "winter" to date. I realize it's still March, but I'm going out on a limb and saying we will not get any more storms like that!

On my last post I mentioned the long, backcountry snowshoe I did with the boys in the Lester/Amity Valley. We had tons of fun. Too much for me! What I failed to mention in my last post was the fact that I almost tore my right quad off! I launched off a ten foot cliff into some fresh POW and when I landed it threw me forward and I had to tumble a bit. In the process I hit a fallen tree buried under the snow. (a major risk of jumping blindly into fresh powder, even though the previous three launches left me in hysterics and joy! This jump would initially leave me a bit stunned but no means in the condition I would find myself in come Monday morning. Damn!!!!! My right quad was so bruised and sore I could barely lift for a simple flight of stairs. Ice, Ice and more Ice was the treatment of choice. Lesson learned for now.

This past week things slowly improved and by the weekend I was able to hobble myself to a few runs and ended Sunday with a pretty decent effort and some swill to cap off the evening.

Sunday was the 2nd Annual Shamrock Pub Shuffle. We had a blast and many laughs were had by all. I had ran 2 hours in the morning so the evening three miler was doable. So, here is a quick summary of the week. I hope this week I can get back to some consistent training as I am lagging big time!

Mon: 0 miles
Tues: 0 miles
Wed: 0 miles
Thurs:  38:00   5 miles
Fri:  32:00  4.5 miles
Sat:  48:00 slow trails, very sore yet  5 miles
Sun: 1:55:00   14.2 miles (a great improvement)
          30:00      3 miles  (eve. pub shuffle)

Total:  ~32 miles

Years Total: 408.3 miles

Two Week Rap...Totally!

Two weeks have passed since my last entry. One reason for this is just laziness and not high on the daily priority list but mostly I haven't been doing much except resting. I have run a bit over the last two weeks but I had some minor setbacks to say the least.

Here is a brief summary of the week following my last entry.

Early in the week I was running well. I did a series of runs in Hartley as well as roads and was getting consistent runs with the hamstring tolerating them fair. (still some pull)  On Thursday of that week I saw Adam, a sports Chiro, and he worked the snot out of my hamstring.  I have been doing some strength exercises and he liked what I was doing and added a bunch of stability work to my regimen. After his appointment our family took a short trip to the Twin Cities for a few days. I ran on the treadmill for a short run and did my exercises on Friday. Saturday I was off and Sunday I ran with Hypo from the Canal into gale-force winds! Then an hour after our run I came down with the Flu!

My week looked like this:
M: 51:17  7 miles
T: 55:28  7 miles
W: 52:01  5.7 miles (trails)
Thr. off
F: 4 miles treadmill
S: off
Sun: 1:36:00  12 miles

Total:  35.7 miles


Since I came down with the flu I had a tough time getting back on track and then Thursday I turned the corner and things improved rapidly since. So happy with that! I managed to see Adam again this week and he is happy with the progress on the hamstring.  I took of most of the week and had a wonderful late week of running. It looked something like this:

M-Thursday: 0 miles sick!
Fri: 43:46  5+ miles roads
Sat: 58:00  7.4 miles
Sun:  2:15:00  snowshoe with the boys! crazy fun in Lester Park.

Total: 21+ miles
Years Total: 376.3 miles