In awe

Tag: injury

  • Day467 slow week

    Maybe it is a pattern that after a big race, there is a big let down immediately after. I have been in a slump the last two weeks.

    My ability to run shouldn’t be a limiting factor, but my life has been hectic and what not. It got so bad that I haven’t run for two weeks.

    The only times I stopped running were for quarantine back in 2020. I took two weeks off then. Another time I stopped running was due to caring for my mom – that was right before the 100 mile race in West Virginia.

    This time I really messed up with my training for the next hundred miler. I should have been in my peak condition right now, but I am not. I think I am at maybe 10%. The race is maybe in 6 weeks. It is a bit late. I really bombed my February and March, the two crucial months.

    Not only that but a few days ago, it started on Wednesday, I had lower back pain. I had back pain in the past. It comes and goes. The pain was enough for me to keep me from running.

    The next morning though the pain shifted to my lower left thigh. It was as if someone stabbed me during the night in the back of my leg. I was hobbling around during the next day. Friday, it got a bit better. The pain went down to numbness. Still walking was difficult. Saturday I stayed home. The pain reduced a bit further. There were certain positions I could sit or lay down where I could be painfree now. Then came Sunday. I had a 10K race.

    A wise person would listen to their body but I am not one of them. I went to the course anyway. I paid for the race months ago and there is no way I would be giving up on it. Even if I couldn’t run it, I might be able to walk it. It might take me two hours but I will get it done.

    Before the race, I googled what was wrong with me with my conditions. I think I have an idea now. Of course I am not a doctor and the web and self diagnosis is not the most accurate thing. I think I had a high hamstring pulled. The conditions seem to match. They have a term for this. I realized I had this pain before. Some say it wouldn’t go away by resting and ice.

    Would I still going to run it or not? I could barely walk. I thought it was funny I was limping down the street while everyone was doing their warm up runs. I tried to stretch my hamstring, boy was that hurt. No worry. We would go slow.

    I chose to run. The first mile was like a 13 min pace and I was with all the slow people. Gradually I could go a bit faster and faster. The pain let up. I could go into a full sprint. Glory for now and pain later I said to myself. I could move at a 9 min pace (near my top speed) by mile 4. Mile 5 I started to get tired and my pace dropped back down to 9:30. I cruised to the finish passing a few other people on the way in.

    Now what? Don’t do what I did. Listen to your body. I don’t know if I will be able to move tomorrow. We will see.

    Fyi, I am not sure if I had covid or was it the side effect from the booster shot, but I had all of these:

    “Post-COVID-19 fatigue is more than just tiredness and can make you feel completely drained, exhausted, and generally unwell, which is common when your body is fighting a viral infection. You may also experience other symptoms such as: Weakness, Muscle and joint pain, Poor concentration, Sore throat, Headache,
    Disorientation.”

    Why did I not get tested? I forgot; it didn’t occur to me that it could have been covid. Only now as I am writing up this post, the light turned on. I could have the omicron. I should have gotten tested. Now it is too late, I already felt much better this week.

    I don’t know what will happen to me now in the weeks ahead. My conditions might take 6 more weeks to fix, but I definitely will make it worse with my running. There are exercises (stretches) I could do to strengthen my hamstring. Six weeks from now though would be my 100 mile race.

  • Day370

    I didn’t go camping. Instead I had a lazy saturday.

    I injured my foot last weekend while running. I didn’t notice anything wrong at the time, but it probably was from over straining my right foot. You know the whole body hurts after running the marathon and my right foot was hurting. I didn’t pay much attention to it but through out the week, the top of my right foot continued to hurt. I stopped running by Wednesday to let it recover. By today, it still hurts.

    I googled on foot pain. They had several reasons. I am scared of having foot fractured. They said it would take 4-6 weeks to recover. It means no running.

    I can’t be sure unless I go see a doctor. They said even with the x-ray it might not show up. Only advice is to rest and use ice/heating pad. I don’t know. I massaged it every day and night. I hope it will be better soon.

    So because my foot is bad, I was thinking to go camping to rest a bit from running. That though probably not a good idea either since I usually carry a heavy pack on me when I backpack.

    In the end I didn’t go. It was not for my foot but because I was too slow in getting my things together on Friday night.

    By noon on Saturday, I was still only partially packed, I decided to abandoned the trip but to go to a park to run instead. In a couple weeks I will be running a 50 mile race. I signed up on a spurt moment early October. There is finally a race being approved in my area. So I signed up. I have very little training for it. It finally sank in now I need to train.

    So I went to Seneca Park – well not exactly there but an area south of it. My race will be the whole thing at the park and the surrounding region. I did a race there this spring and already know part of the trail. So today I went to explore the part I have not been to. The trail is called Muddy Branch, but luckily our fall is quite dry and I did not get muddy.

    I did a six miles out and then back. Ended up with 13.1. I reached 13 miles when I got back to the car, but I wanted the extra .1 to say I did a half marathon today for a training run.

    That’s all. Originally, I wanted to do my birthday run too, which means a lot of miles because I am now into my 4th decade. I backed out of that. I would not want to be out running the whole day. A short few hours of running was enough.

  • First day of the new year

    I was blessed to run in a race on the first day of the new year. I signed up for a free 5k race hosted by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. It was a high quality race even though it was free. We got a free technical T-shirt and finisher medal. The race was timed. The course was new to me. A lot of people showed up. The whole city showed up…I think at least couple thousands.  (more…)