Thursday, September 17, 2009

Dinged Up

Two runs so far this week, as I head towards Sunday's Philadelphia Distance Run.
On Monday I went for a tempo run... did around six and a half, with four of them the tempo part. I averaged 6:35 on those four.
On Tuesday, when walking to class, something in my left leg – hip? groin? – seized up.
Yesterday I went on a five mile run down on Forbidden Drive. Managed to average just under nine minutes per mile. The first mile took me just under ten minutes. And it didn't even feel that easy.
So, yeah, I'm dinged up.
My pattern, these last few years, has been to get dinged up some, but not actually get injured. I'm hoping that's the case right now. Worst case scenario, I'm guessing, would be that I've given myself some kind of groin pull. Best case scenario would be that this goes away quickly, and I can still kick butt on Sunday.
As to why this happened, there are two explanations.
The first explanation Helen can't stand... see, when I woke up on September 1, I didn't say Rabbit Rabbit. Since then, I've broken a tooth, banged my right thigh - hard – into a railing, and now this. I haven't had that kind of string of bad luck in ages. Coincidence? Could be... but I don’t know.
The second explanation is more traditional: too much hard running. Volume is up as well, which would be a contributing factor. But at last Thursday’s trail run I went pretty hard, esp. at the end. Then on Saturday Helen and I ran 17 miles, with miles 15 and 16 at the track, trying to go at marathon pace. Then the tempo run. So that's three hard runs in five days. So I'm making a note not to repeat that – to give myself more time between hard runs. But come October 1, I’m saying Rabbit Rabbit just in case.

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