Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Happy to hear your pretty mcuh pain free. Are you still planning on doing Moab half?

Josse - no, I will either do the 5-miler or sit around Moab and eat pancakes, depending on how the next three weeks go.

Hey, that's good news! Glad you were able to run pain-free.

That's sweet to reschedule your workout for V-day. By the way, how is the sweet Stacy these days? Hope she doesn't feel sick! Give her a squeeze from the FRB Chicas, will ya?

Good luck with the continued efforts to get rid of the nasty hamstring tendonitis crud. I've fought this off-and-on for a couple of years (after being stupid and running back-to-back marathons) and although I've been able to continually improve as a runner since then, I can't seem to ever fully get rid of that stupid pain way up in the butt where the tendon connects. Seems like as soon as I think I've got it under control, it will rear it's ugly head again a few days after a hard race or after a slippery snowy run or sometimes for no good reason whatsoever.

I really hope you can eliminate it completely, it's been very interesting and educational to see how you've been dealing with the problem. Great to hear all the advice from your PT, Josse and other experts on the blog.

Paul- eating pancakes and brugers, right?

Paul/Tom- do you think the hip problems you guys had are at least partly linked to doing 2 marathons so close together?

Jon- In my case it was related to back-to-back marathons but had to do more about what I did in between the 2 marathons. My intention had been to run the 1st marathon as a slower training run (yeah right) but of course I didn't do that. THen I had to rush home right after the marathon and didn't have to stretch or do any of my normal most-marathon body-babying routine. Then the final straw was the week afterward trying to do a scheduled hard tempo run. I think it was actually during the hard training run that I really caused the injury. Being stubborn I still went ahead and did the 2nd marathon (3 or 4 weeks after the 1st) and at that point I was pretty much messed up.

I did try at one point taking about a month off from running and went to a PT where he did some massage work, showed me some safe stretches and exercises and did this ultrasound thingy using low electric current to zap/massage the problem area. This helped a little bit but after I started running I could still always feel the dumb pain in the butt if I stretched just the right. At this point it's always there but I go through periods where I don't notice it all during running, just if I stretch a certain way. I find it helpful to NOT do any stretching that brings out the pain.

I always think injuries are brought on by more than one thing and our bodies always tells us that something is coming. When I feel something coming I jump on it right away. Not to say I don't get injuried but when you run alot of miles I think you have to be really in tune and listen to your body.

I wish we could just train the way we want and NOT get injured. It doesn't seem very fair does it. I mean all those people sitting on the couch putting on the pounds don't get injured why do we?

Jon - two marathons didn't help, but in reality I was perfectly healthy immediately after Trials. It most certainly wore down my body though. I think my mistake was accepting the Houston invitation and "forcing" the ball to keep rolling. Then it became a combination of trying to train hard through the winter on snowy and icy surfaces, with a body that probably needed rest and strengthening instead. If I could do it all over again, I would have turned down Houston and just focused on base, cross training, and increasing strength. Pretty much what I am doing right now, except I got there the hard way! Next winter, I will actually try to CHOOSE that routine on my own. I think as I get older, my body requires a "winter maintenance mode". It's not to say I can't run good mileage during the winter, but rather, take a break from tempos and intervals and use that time to work on my strength, flexibility, and durability instead.