Rob Murphy

Rest Day. Legs are sore - especially lower legs. Probably the spikes. Napped for a couple hours when I got home from Atlanta then went for a long walk with Ann. Watched the Super Bowl with our next door neighbors. Learned how to ride a Hoverboard.

PM: Very slow 7.25 miles in the gully followed by a mile on the stair stepper. Hot tubbed to try to work out some of the stiffness.

6 easy miles around the neighborhood. Ribs still hurt.

Trump wants to have a big military prade. Totally out of the American tradition. Something that fascist countries and the Soviet Union specialized in.

For a man who never served and used a fake bone spur thing to dodge the draft in Vietnam, Trump really has a fetish for the military.

2 painful miles to the garden center and back. Finally got fed up with it and went to the urgent treatment center to get my ribs/chest looked at.

Had 3 chest x-rays and fortunately nothing seems cracked or broken. They diagnosed something called costochondritis which is an inflammation of the rib or cartilage that connects to the sternum that can cause persistent sharp or aching chest pain (true that!). The doctor expressed surprise that I could race last Saturday just a couple days after it happened.

He also said that I could expect the pain for another 3 weeks or so. Joy! The good news is I can run without doing anyfurther damage if I can "tolerate the pain". 

Glad to know what's going on. 

PM: 5 mile walk around Sugar House with a little easy running. 

PM: 4 mile walk with Ann. Ribs still hurt and I have a little cold but I'm going to try and race the 10k tomorrow anyway.

One slow mile around the block. Off to the SLTC Winter 10k now. Going to run without a watch and have fun. Maybe snag some free bananas?

As I do almost every year at this time except last year when I was running up and down Grandeur Peak 4 times, I ran the SLTC 10k today. This is the first year I've done it at the end of a whopping 17 mile weak with achy ribs and difficulty breathing. But the doctor said I wouldn't hurt myself and I paid for the race a couple months ago, so why not? Plus I just really enjoy these races.

Gulped a couple ibuprofins and headed west at around 8:50 this morning. Ran an easy 1 mile warmup and then did dome stretching inside Saltair. Decided to race without my watch and just go by feel so the only split time I have is at the 5k turnaround which was 19:14. I finished in 38:14 so that makes 19:00 for the second 5k by my calculations. I was gaining on Bill the whole return trip and thought I might be able to pull off the age group win, but he held me off by a few seconds.  I wish I had made a harder effort to catch him in over the last mile.

I achieved my A goal which was to acquire enough bananas to last the week from the post-race spread.