dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

With all the excitement I have gone through lately, traveling to Utah and all, I was tired and accidentally slept in this morning.  I decided to run in the afternoon instead, but when I got home from school I found out my bike had been stolen.  By the time the policeman left our apartment it was pretty late, and I still had to finish an assignment that was due by midnight (I didn't finish it sooner because I was in Utah).  So, I ended up not running at all today.  I wasn't too happy with the whole situation, but I guess things happen.

I ran to school this morning, running 8.6 miles in 1:01:12.  I was moving a little quicker than normal as I had two days off in a row.  I will run home in the evening.

PM: I ran home from school, finishing 8.6 miles in just over 1:03:00.  I felt like doing some speed work, so I ran what I will call 6 x 400m on the way home.  I ran what I have estimated previously to be a quarter mile, and I ran it in 69 seconds, so as I continued to run home I ran 5 more "400's" and just ran what felt like a good 400 effort for 70 seconds before stopping.  I had about 4:00 rest after the first and second repeats, and then had about 2:00 rest after the others.  The first 4 repeats were into the wind, and I had a cross wind during the last 2 repeats (basically the wind didn't effect me at all during the last 2 repeats).

I ran to school this morning.  I took off a little quicker than normal because I was a little late in leaving the house, and after a couple miles my right calf started to complain.  I think that my legs were just tight after the 400's last night, and by starting out quickly I didn't give my body the chance to relax into the pace.  Anyhow, I ended up stopping a few times to stretch the calf, and to massage it out.  Kimia ended up picking me up just before I got to school as she was coming to drop off a poster for me, so I only ran what I will call 8.3 miles (instead of 8.6) in 1:02:35.

My leg kept hurting after I got to school, and as I was walking back from class it was bothering me a lot.  Luckily, it started to feel better and did not hurt at all as I was walking around campus later on in the afternoon.  I am going to massage some here at school, and hopefully get the leg feeling good enough to run home.

PM:  I ran home in the evening, running 8.6 miles in 1:09:10.  I ran so slow because I was trying to be careful so as not to make the calf worse than it already was.  After about 1.5 miles my calf started to feel pretty tight, but I didn't experience any pain running home, so I ended up making it all the way.  All in all I am happy with the run, as I made it home and I don't feel like I hurt myself any worse.

I ran to school this morning.  I kept the pace pretty slow like yesterday evening, and my calf felt tight for most of the run again, but I felt much more relaxed while running, so I ended up finishing 8.6 miles in 1:05:56.  I feel like my leg is getting better pretty quickly, I just need to take it easy until the end of the week to make sure that I don't strain it worse.  The last thing I want is to get hurt before the marathon I am running at the end of this month.  A few days of easy running will not affect me, but a few weeks will.

PM: I ran to the mall from school, because Kimia was there, and she drove me home after I showed up.  It ended up being just a little bit longer than the run to our apartment.  I will call it 8.8 miles, in 1:08:12

I realized today that what I had thought was improvement in the calf strain was really just increased flexibility after I had massaged out all of the knots.  My leg really hasn't been getting better, and part of it has been the mileage.  So, today I started my run, but bailed out after 3 miles because my calf was bothering me.  Hopefully the extra rest will help me heal more quickly.

My leg felt much better this morning than it did yesterday, however after about 3.5 miles I noticed it starting to feel somewhat tight, and after 4.5 miles there was a little pain.  I ended up turning around at 6 miles, and the pain felt tolerable until the end of the run, but not great.  I finished 12 miles in 1:29:05.  I sped up slowly over the last 4 miles to try and see if speed caused more pain, or if the difference was negligible.  Results of my test were good, as pain seemed to be fairly equivalent at the faster (6:30-7:15 pace) speeds.

PM: I wanted to still get in good mileage for today, and I was itching to go faster, because I hadn't run anything fast since Tuesday.  So, I went over to the track and ran a few mile repeats, with 1 mile rest between repeats (I know, I am stupid for running hard when my leg is hurt, and for running a double when running doubles has been preventing me from healing).  The first repeat was a 5:26 (90, 81, 78, 77), followed by a 5:06 (82, 75, 75, 74), and finishing with a 4:56 (75, 75, 73, 73).  I felt like I could run 75 second quarters forever, despite the calf issues,  My calf hurt less when I was running fast than when I was running slow, but it would flare up as soon as I finished a repeat.  I ran the last repeat with some wind (I got lucky on the first 2, virtually no wind) and I was glad that I was able to maintain a good pace despite the wind.  Total of 8 miles.

I ran the mile repeats in part because I wanted to make sure that if this problem has not gone away by the time I run my next marathon in Illinois in 3 weeks I will still be able to run fast without any problems.  The test indicated that my leg should hold up fine.