Last night we arrived at an old farmhouse in Pennsylvania that my wifes parents own on a 150 acre farm. It's not really a farm anymore because the trees have all grown back and it is now a forrest again as are most of the other farms in the area. It has been in my wifes family since 1870. It is a beautifull area with woods, forrests, ponds, blueberry patches, and lots of wildlife. It is my favorite place to run. The terrain is very hilly and if your not going up your going down. Not much is flat. It's not a good place for people who get carsick to ride in a car as the roads are also windy. There is a lot of shade. I was really looking forward to the 65 or 70 miles I was planning to run while we were there.
I slept until about 9:30 to catch up on lost sleep the last 2 nights and didn't start my run until about 11:00. The temperature was about 70 and with lots of shade it was nice. I felt very good running. The elevation is only about 2,000 feet which is high for Pen. After 2 days off I had plenty of energy. I did 13 miles total. I did the first 5 at 8:09 pace then the next 5 at 7:27 pace. I did the 11th mile in 6:54 and 12 in 6:22. I felt like going a lot farther but I had a 20 miler planned for thursday and wanted to be fresh for that. Overall pace for 12 was 7:38. I was doing a 1 1/2 mile cooldown just running along easy enjoying the scenery looking around rather than watching where I was stepping when I tripped on a rock that was sticking up out of the dirt road I was running on. I was going down hard and thought I was going to cut up my knees up for sure but I brought my right leg forward fast enough to catch myself and only my hands it the ground but as my leg came forward so fast I felt my hamstring tear. I knew it had to be bad and could not believe what had just happened. As I hobbled the 1/2 mile back to the farmhouse my first thoughts were worry that I might not be able to run anymore while I was there on the farm. That was disappointing enough without thinking that it might keep me from running the TOU half in 2 weeks or even SGM in 8 weeks. I had been training so hard and everything seemed to be going so well. I had no nagging injuries bothering me and I felt like I was still improving. I iced it down and took a bunch of ibuprofin and hoped maybe it would be like sprained ankles I have had a couple of times that hurt like crazy but aren't too bad by the next day but after a couple of days it seemed just as bad as the day it happened. I couldn't even walk without favoring it or even push my son on the rope swing and running was out of the question. While sitting it felt like a big lump under my leg but I never got any bruising. One wrong steep or twist and I would get shooting pain as bad as when it first happened. I tried riding a bike and couldn't. I was getting very dicouraged and realized that even if I am able to run SGM that I will probably won't be running much the next 4 or 5 weeks which was going to be the peak of my training before a 3 week taper to SGM. All the fast finish long runs and downhill mar. pace runs I had planned for so I could really peak for this one seem to be out the window. It is hard knowing that I am the fittest I have ever been and all the work that went into getting there could just go away and I can't do anything about it. I just have to remember there are plenty of worse things that happen to people that make this seem insignificant. It is just temporary and will heal.
On the positive side after the 3rd day I found I could ride a bike. At first it was a bit painful and I had to take it easy but as I rode farther it actually felt better. It has now been 8 days we got home from our trip yesterday and it is feeling a lot better than it was. I can run about 5 steps. | 