Down Time

In my last post, I talked about my next possible race, most likely being Detroit Free Press HALF. I'm seriously considering NOT running in that one now, as the original plan was to run with a friend, and we'd push each other to our limits and feed off of each other's positive energy. That friend took a different path, and won't be running the race.

Then my left leg's minor problems started to feel like they were becoming MAJOR problems. I ran some great workouts with those minor problems. Whether one day the pain was a dull numbness in the Tibialis Anterior, or extreme tightness the next in my Gastrocnemius/Soleus. It was definitely muscular in nature at first. I made a visit to Ormsbee and he tuned me up. He ripped through muscles that were just way too tight, loosening them up with deep massage until they were fatigued and shaking. The very next day I'm hitting 200 meter repeats at 32 seconds like it was a walk in the park. Tiring afterwards, but still nice to know my legs can open up.
The very next day I hit roughly 18:15 for a 5K at the end of a hard 8 (sandwiched inside of 10). Then cap that off with 16 miles on a super hot and humid morning on the Paint Creek Trail...at 6:48 pace. 6:36 pace on the way back in.

Those were the last good runs. Then walking started to be a problem. The muscles in the left leg on both sides were sore, cramping, and giving me issues. No relaxing, and spontaneous cramps would pop up out of no place. Heat generated from the leg seems to melt ice-packs in 20 minutes...and I don't even feel the ice. After a few crappy slow runs, I decided it's probably time to take a bit of time OFF.

I'm through one full week of no running, and the muscle still cramps up from time to time, but it's NOT constantly generating enough heat to keep Bob Cratchit's family warm at Christmas...so that's a good thing. During this week off I've felt what seems like a general soreness in the leg bone. That sounds a hell of a lot like two words runners never want to hear: "Stress Fracture".

So now the idea is take another week off and get in at some point to see Kyle. If that shows further improvements I'll take it slow on the return back, and not worry so much about small races here and there. Maybe Detroit takes a backseat and prep solely for Houston.

Lots of Biking in my near future..and maybe swimming as well.