Back on Flat

Well today I was back in Philly and running the Schuykill loop again. It was nice to be back on familiar ground after a week. I started at Lloyd Hall and ran along Kelly Drive and then most of the rest of the loop. I stopped a little short of a full loop so that I ran 8 miles.

At that the start, I saw what looked like a Kenyan runner. It was odd because he was running alone. Early on, I felt tight and stiff. After 15 minutes of that, I decided that it would be wise to take a walking break. I walked for 3 minutes.

After that, I would run for 10 minutes and walk for another 2 minutes. That helped me recover some, but it was actually quite tough towards the end. It's amazing how slow you start after a walk break, but also how much faster you become after a few minutes.

One of the last segments, I elected to take a 4 minute walk break. That was actually too long and much more difficult to come back from. I thought about quitting the workout a little short to rest, but I pushed through it.

Because of my injured right leg, my left foot is overcompensating and is starting to become sore. This was the case throughout the run. I iced it afterwards and I'm working on some stretching too.

The leg injury continues to bother me and did so during this run because I started and stopped so much. It just seems really tight and I'm hobbling around a lot when I go places too. I was pleased to find that it and the groin issue are related to my sore hip too. This became evident during some hip strengthening exercises yesterday.

I was doing hip strengthening earlier in the summer when my leg was bothering me. I really backed off of it once I felt better though. Now, I need to get back to that and add other muscle strengthening exercises too. I need to get stronger all around to help prevent injuries. I'm reading a good book on running injury free right now and it has a bunch of suggestions.

I've been going back and forth with whether I want to run, run/walk or cross training. The leg injury just doesn't seem to be getting any better, so I think I'm going to cross train at least through the end of this week. We'll see how I feel next week too. Maybe I'll continue it then.

I've really taken pride in doing all my workouts as planned, but at this point I really need to back off just to make sure I make it to the marathon. Doing some cross training to get healthy is better than doing half runs and becoming more sore. It'll be much better for me in the long run.

8 miles - 1:13:33 (9:12 pace)