It has been an interesting few days since I last ran. I felt fine after the fast and hard run on Wednesday. Thursday was a scheduled rest day and I was okay until I went to an auto race that night. It was cold and my leg started acting up. All of a sudden, I had soreness when standing in the same spot for a few minutes. It bothered me on the drive home too. I put some heat on my legs before bed. They continued to bother me during sleep if they weren't positioned correctly.
I decided to take an extra day off and cut out the 60 minute bike ride on Friday. I iced my knees and laid in bed or sat on the couch all day. It did help, but at times if my legs still had some minor aches. The concern this week has been that this injury was below my knee cap rather than to the side.
I was afraid to go out and run the long 4.5 mile run this morning. I woke up early and felt good, but still had some of the minor sensations in my legs. After reading for an hour and going back to bed for another two hours, I decided to test myself by getting out and running. I figured I won't know how bad the problem is if I don't give it a go.
Navigation to Llyod Hall was tough because of all the 4th of July activity. It took even longer to get there. I ran all the way out to the scheduled turnaround point just past the St. Joe's Prep Rowing Building. Around that area was a little difficult because they were having an event. I felt pretty good though.
I ran back for about another mile or so, but then my leg started acting up. I tried to push on, but once I went from gravel to pavement, it got worse. I had to start walking. I've been reading a book that Jeff Galloway wrote. His training involves walking for a minute or two every mile. It's something that isn't easy for a competitive runner to accept. That's for sure.
Since I couldn't run anymore and was so far from home, I decided to give Jeff's program a try. At the 2 minute walking point, I approached the second set of gravel. I ran for another 8 minutes or so to the other end of the gravel. I then walked for 2 more minutes and ran until I got to Llyod Hall. I decided to keep going for a little longer since I had to walk back a lot further than usual. I added in about 2 minutes of uphill before walking. This run/walk pattern was very refreshing and gave me energy to push further. It greatly reduced the pain. It's something I'll definitely continue in training for awhile, if not during the race too.
I'm going to keep icing my legs after running and will try to be more cautious in my training. I think overstriding is what caused my problem this week. I kept a nice and slow pace today. Another thing I'm doing is overstretching. Every time I've felt soreness, I've been stretching and sometimes too hard. I need to stretch after exercise and if I feel really bad, but I can't keep doing it over and over again. That can cause damage as well.
They say that running is trial and error and I'm certainly learning. I thought of overtraining as running too many miles, I never really thought much about it as running too hard. I also didn't feel like I was going too hard since I was just increasing my stride and not really working harder. Obviously I was wrong.
The biggest problem I have is I rely too much on the past. When I ran track, I was able to get up to speed very quickly with no running background. I was able to compete with some of the best runners around in just two months. Now looking back, it's not just amazing the quick progress I made, but also that I didn't get injured. If you asked my track coach, he probably would've said that he didn't like to push me that hard. It was my senior year though and the last and only chance, so he let me run as hard as everyone else for as long as I'd take to it. I probably would've got injured had I kept up that training pace.
One thing that likely did keep me injury free and got me up to speed so quickly back then was that I was very active. I didn't run, but played baseball, football and basketball, all the time. I had a good fitness base to work from. I've now been running for 2 months, but that's after doing next to nothing for years, especially the five years since graduating from college.
I want to be an elite runner, but I need to be patient. There's still plenty of time. They say not to go for a goal time in your first marathon and now I see why. You'll come across a lot roadblocks like this if you push too hard. I need to just hit the finish line in November. Whatever the clock reads doesn't matter. It'll take years for me to become an elite runner anyways. Once I have a good healthy base built up, then I can start pushing a little more.
Tomorrow is an off day with some strength and stretching. I'll be at Watkins Glen for the Indy Car race. Monday will be an early 3 mile run. It's the live period for basketball, so I'll be very busy with that over the next two weeks. I'll still get my workouts in though.
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