Battling Injury

Thursday of this week I was in the middle of a great tempo run when I started to feel a little twinge my left hamstring just proximal to my knee. I initially thought "you're just pushing hard and things are just fine". Well as I continued so did the discomfort, actually it turned into pain, I promptly cut the run short and walked/jogged back to the car. I iced it as soon as I got home and started to deal with all of the mental distress I had accumulated while walking back to the car. Given that I am a little less than two weeks away from my first 50 mile race (The Pocatello 50) and what I consider one of my most important races of the year, this was a major blow. I was a little more than half-way through my last big week before tapering and really wanted the 30 mile run I had planned for Saturday.

When I woke up on Friday my leg was stiff with point tenderness and I started to panic. I called in a round of favors, that afternoon I had an evaluation to make sure no tearing had occurred, E-stim ice massage session, Saturday morning I had another E-stim, ultrasound, ice massage session, followed by a massage for 35 minutes that focused entirely on my left hammy later in the afternoon. Sunday was the 3rd day in a row that I did not run, and I did more ice massage. I came to grips that my fitness is not going to suffer too much with the lay off and I could start the taper a little early.

Today (Monday), my leg is feeling much better, no stiffness and very little tenderness with palpation. I am planning on an easy run today just to loosen up the leg and feel it out, cross your fingers for me. This relatively minor injury has shown me that taking time off is one of the hardest things to deal with mentally, but I am certain now it is what probably saved my race. I guess only time will tell, but I am taking the optimist's route and think that I will emerge stronger (and more rested) than before!

End of January

January 2009 has already come and nearly gone, unbelievable!  I am always amazed with how quickly time passes when you keep yourself busy.  The days literally seem like they are flying by.  I seem to be pretty much recovered from the mysterious shin pain that showed up last week.  I owe the super speedy recovery to a couple of days rest, lots and lots of stretching and some amazing training advice from a fellow PA student Leslie McGovern.  Leslie was a trainer for a lot of years and she was quickly able to recognize what was going on and give some great info on what to do.  For any interested, Leslie told me that runners are extremely notorious for only running, the strengthens many muscles but it does leave some of the antagonist muscles lacking.  Particularly the anterior tibialis.  When the AT is weak the lower leg compensates by overworking the soleus (the deep calf muscle), and this can result in an array of problems including an aggravated posterior tibialis tendon, extremely sore soleus muscles and many other common maladies that runners face.  Leslie recommended, in addition to stretching, pop-ups.  A pop-up is basically a calf raise where you quickly raise to your toes and then very slowly lower back down.  This directly targets the eccentric motion of the anterior tibialis. Also she recommended using a theraband doing very similar motions to strengthen the anterior part of the leg.  When doing the pop-ups the should be done with a straight leg and with the knee bent, this allows for better targeting of the muscle.  In later discussions with Leslie she explained that lot of runners whose feet slap when they run have a weak AT muscle.  So if your friends are slapping when they run they you should recommend this to them so they avoid problems down the road. 

On a side note I took a quick trip to Las Vegas this weekend to help a friend set-up for a tradeshow and I got in an awesome run on the strip early in the morning.  For the first time in my life I really wish it would just warm up and get to summer.  It was great to run in shorts and a t-shirt without gloves, tights, hat, and without slipping all over the place on the ice.  With the demands of school this year I am only skiing a fraction of what I have normally been able to and to compensate I run more.  Running is my escape, it is my dear friend that is always there when I need him, running is the answer to my problems.  I love it.  And even though I love it sometimes it is a relationship that is strained, sometimes I don't have the time I need to dedicate to it, sometimes it is really cold and I want to tell it to wait for another day, sometimes it hurts when I do it, BUT it is always there waiting and ready to go, it forgives and forgets, running loves me back. 

A little pain

Once again I find myself pondering about what I am certain that runners everywhere commonly do.  How much is too much? How can I tell if I am overtraining? Well from my experience the body speaks, it tells you how it is doing, the trick is learning how to listen.  For many this is a very difficult task, including me.  This post is somewhat bittersweet, it was only days ago that I posted about completing a big training goal and now I was forced to take today off.  By forced I mean that I was feeling what I perceived as a possible serious injury and I decided to sideline myself for a couple of runs so that it didn't become a major issue.  

For quite some time now I have had an array of problems with achilles type pain; I had a real minor achilles tendonitis, followed by an injury involving my posterior tibialis on the same leg, and now I am faced with what I thought was perhaps shin splints, but after a visit to a trained professional, it turns out to be an extremely tight soleus (insert deep sigh of relief here).  All of these problems are related to tight calves, and a tight posterior leg in general.  I am glad that I wasn't given a 6 week jail sentence today yet I am somewhat uncertain of what to do to help clear up this myriad of problems that I seem to have trouble escaping.  I was prescribed lots of stretching and massage.  Jared Campbell shared an awesome study about eccentric calf lowers and how effective they can be in relieving these problems which I am doing somewhat religiously.  What I do want to know is what else?  I know that there are a few that have started to follow what's in my brain through this blog, and any feedback would be very appreciated, I am still pretty new at this and any advice would be welcome.  Hopefully, I can figure out what my training is missing and get things back on track sooner than later.