First good run in last two weeks
Quick summary of the previous week:
Sat: ran with Jon Laman, had to cut it off at 4.5 miles due to hamstring tightness (pain level 5 out of 10)
Sun: 20 mins easy on elliptical at home + stretching. No pain.
Mon: off
Tues: off + PT appointment. Performed a bunch of leg exercises. Felt uncomfortable that the only PT had to split time between me and another patient.
Wed: bike 30 mins at LA Fitness + stretching.
Thu: bike 45 mins at LA Fitness + stretching. Ran slowly for 5 mins w/o pain.
Fri: racquetball for an hour was the plan but stopped at 15 mins due to mild hamstring tightness (pain level 2 out of 10). I was annoyed at myself for neglecting a warm-up. After stretching the hamstring tightness pretty much went away. Later that night I came across a Runner’s World article on recovering from hamstring problems.
On Saturday morning I was supposed to run with Jon and a running group (called “Crispy Balance“) he recently discovered. I was fairly nervous about running since it felt tight the night before, but ended up deciding to give it a shot.
I met up with Jon and the “Crispies” at City Island at 9. The group was welcoming, laid-back, and well-organized. Meg, the woman hosting the run, had written route instructions for runs of a variety of distances, ranging from 5.7 to 11 miles and had stashed water and Gatorade along the course in several locations. Introductions were made, then we all posed for a group picture and headed off. I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go since I was worried about my hamstring tightening up again. I made sure to do a bunch of movement to help warm-up before starting and concentrated on keeping my pace really slow.
I enjoyed both the running route (there were a couple of awesome views of Harrisburg from the hills), and the nice group of people. Several were really into ultra-marathon and trail racing. One woman mentioned she celebrated turning 50 by running in the JFK 50 mile trail race. Very inspiring. A lot of group members were training for the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, which I thought was really cool since it meant a bunch of people on a similar training schedule.
I felt much better than I had feared earlier, and ended up running 10 miles. My leg felt complete fine until the last 1/2 mile or so, when I could feel a little bit of fatigue/tightness. After the run I stretched for about 10 minutes and felt great after that.
Sunday: 1 hour 10 mins on bike + stretching.
Plan for the week: Bike 3 days and try to get in two 5-6 mile easy runs and a good long run on Sat or Sun. I’m also going to slowly ease into some hamstring specific exercises to build back strength and flexibility.
April 1st, 2008 at 1:25 am
Good to hear you’re feeling a bit better. This injury stuff stinks. Sounds like you are taking it easy though to get better. Good luck this week.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:42 am
Yeah, injuries are no fun, but I suppose it could have been much worse. I had a great run this afternoon, the weather was close to perfect. Glad to hear your long run this weekend went well.