[S]he Conquers Who Endures

So, I'm pretty sure I solved my hamstring issue, which turns out to not be a hamstring issue but piriformis syndrome!!! I realized sitting at my desk that my hamstring started to hurt more while sitting. This didn't make sense since the hamstring should be relaxed in that position. I came across piriformis syndrome on a google search and found exercises for stretching the muscle and sciatica nerve flossing. I tried the flossing and...bam!! My pain went almost entirely away!! A dull pain that has been hanging around 3-4 weeks, almost gone...hallelujah! I spent the rest of the day sitting in positions to stretch my piriformis. Then headed out for a 12 mile run after dark. I limit my glance to my watch to check my pace during dark runs so I don't break things in my legs. After a mile and some even asphalt, I did a pace check and realized my first mile was 7:31 pace!!! Opps! Too fast. Tried to slow up just a little (normally these runs are 7:45 to 7:50 pace for me), 2nd mile 7:26!! What?!! Just went with it because it didn't feel like a threshold pace. My heart rate, breathing, and soft tissue felt in sync and working comfortably. I did 8 small bridge repeats to prep for overpasses at Disney and finished in a 7:22 min/mi average pace for 12 miles!! My theory is that flossing the sciatica not only helped the pain, but I think my pinched sciatica was limiting my ability to use my muscles (at least I read that muscle weakness can result). Also, I did notice I was "guarding" during runs when I had more pain. Oh my gosh, it felt so good to run pain free and it felt amazing to fly! I never thought I'd hit these paces for that far in this training cycle. I'm reaching my 5k race pace pr for 12 miles!! So awesome. After the run I focused on recovery - epsom salt bath and ice contrast therapy (works wonders for me) followed by going to bed in my recovery pants. :P Gotta recover for my 10k turkey trot Thanksgiving day and 22 miler Saturday! I'm not planning on racing the 10k, I was going to use it as a threshold run, which used to be around 7:20 to 7:30 pace for me. Now I'm not sure what pace that is!!! I will start by feel and try to go no faster than 7:10 min/mi pace, don't want to blow out my legs before my 22 miler.