Jodi’s Running Blog

Sorry to be so negative in my title, folks, but it has been a downer of a week for training. Please refer to my previous post for a clue as to why I might feel this way.

In brief – the hamstring was injured on 6/8/06, last Thursday. The following day I was sent home from an on-call night at work because the pain was so severe I was having difficulty walking. Saturday was not much better. On Sunday, Evan was to run the Furry 5k at Seward Park in Seattle. I was actually able to park the car and walk five blocks to the event. However, this did not work out so well either – not only was Evan’s asthma acting up around thousands of dogs, but the last registration bib number was given to the person in line in front of him, so the registration person gave him a “sorry” with a shrug.

So far this week, I’m better able to walk and climb stairs, but it still hurts like crazy to lift my leg into the air in order to put a sock on. I spoke with a physical therapist at work who was kind enough to show me some stretches and exercises to assist with healing. Unfortunately, she told me these injuries can take – get this – MONTHS to heal. I absolutely refuse to believe this injury will require that much rest. An injury kept me from the London Marathon in 2005, and this time I was so much more careful, built mileage very gradually, and yes, I included speed work, but was not doing anything extreme the morning of this latest injury. I’m on call again tomorrow night and post-call on 6/15. The following day I am going to try getting on the elliptical trainer to see if I can tolerate it. If it reproduces the pain, then the next step is to obtain a membership at a facility with a swimming pool to maintain my fitness level until the muscle heals. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to send them this way.

Anyway, my brief week in review for the running I was able to do – ran a total of about 15 miles prior to the injury.

I suppose the bright side is that the marathon is not until October 1st. This is currently Week #9 of 24 in training, and while this is definitely a set-back, I believe there is still time to prepare for race day. I will likely cut out the speed workouts in favor of just getting the mileage under the belt. I’ll keep you posted.