What's wrong with this picture?

Sunday morning, 8am, the alarm goes off. Joe and I get out of bed in a rather chipper mood and head to our workout clothes. I had made plans to meet others for a track workout. Why on a Sunday morning? Why not! Rather than get in out car as we normally would have, we took a detour to the shed. Out came the bikes. We were planning on riding to the track. We had planned this for the last several days and finally all road blocks had been removed. My old bike was tuned up, his bike now had air in the tires and I had a brand spanking new helmet. Off we went. Now here's the problem, we live at the bottom of a rather large hill. 20 seconds into the ride and half way up the hill I was huffing and puffing like I do at the end of a track workout. This was seeming like a very bad idea.

During my 2 month injury I had been spending many hours in the pool and on the stationary bike. Feeling down about the whole injury thing and not feeling like I was pushing it hard enough on either the bike or in the pool, I came up with the brilliant idea to register for a triathlon. Now if that wasn't bad enough I convinced my sister (who is just a competitive although she will deny it) to register as well. Now that I'm running again, I'm not nearly as into the triathlon training as I was several weeks ago. But too late, I've already submitted my registration. Hence the reason we rode to the track this morning.

The track itself was not a bad in the beginning as I had anticipated. By the time we crawled under the fence to gain access I had recovered from the bike. Oh yeah, we didn't have keys and had to sneak on. Sorry if anyone reading is from Brown security, it was for a good cause! Sue and I did 5x5 mins at threshold pace, which translates into right around an 8 min mile give or take a few seconds. Now it was my understanding that this type of workout wasn't supposed to feel terrible. My lungs would beg to differ. Needless to say we completed the workout as instructed and did not ditch for morning mimosa's

Biking home felt pretty good, we avoided some of the steep down-hills this time around. I remember as a kid loving to ride downhill at top speed screaming at the top of my lungs with both legs outstretched. Going downhill now is a terrifying experience where I grip my handlebars and brakes with white knuckles and pray that I won't land on the side of the road with a broken shoulder.

Ahhhh....5:30am

I hate to say it, but I've missed 5:30am. There is just something about getting my run in first thing. For the rest of the day I feel like I have a big secret. That said, it's not easy getting up and I'm pretty sullen while preparing for the run and for the first mile or so, ask Joe he will confirm. But after that it's so quiet and nice. We started at the Stadium, met Sue and headed down Elmgrove. It is much easier to get in these morning runs when the temps are in the 50's rather than the 20's (which it was the last time we did this). My legs are still tight and pretty sore but if I want to do a marathon in the fall I have to build up these miles. I try to use the mile rule, if I can't get though a mile it's time to throw in the towel, after that you gotta stick with it. When I thought about walking I my watch read 1.7, too late to stop now. Grin and bear it right! The ridiculous conversation kept me going down the Blvd. You would never know that a Ph.D., MSW, and MBA could be so amused with conversations that many Jr. High Schoolers are probably having on the way to school! We did decide on a detour and headed up to Wayland Sq to follow Elmgrove back to the Blvd. 4.2 miles down and ready for the rest of the day!

The good with the bad

Good things:
1. I completed an awful track workout
2. My times were right on through all 10 400's
3. The foot does not hurt

Bad things:
1. Pain is still there
2. At times pain is unbearable

I'm not sure what's going on here. Went to the track tonight and a 2 lap warm up was killer. Calves and shins cramped up almost immediately. I thought about throwing in the towel and running on the road, but figured that would hurt just as much given how Monday felt. The strange thing is that during the workout I don't feel the pain, that could be due to the fact my body is convinced I am steps from death and focused on keeping my legs inflated. Tomorrow I'll hit the pool and see if that helps. The next step will be back to PT for more help. For now I am iced and covered in flexistat (meaning I smell like an 85 year old nursing home resident who loves Ben Gay). I'm choosing to focus on the fact that I completed a hard ass workout. I remember the first year I started these track workouts. We did a very similar workout and I think I got through lap 6. Today I completed all 10 with the times right on! It was a good workout.

I'm back..

Well sort of. I stopped blogging about a month and a half before my foot injury knocked me out of the game. After 2 months of physical therapy and running on a strange treadmill, I've been running outside for about 2 weeks. I know I shouldn't complain. I also know that it's going to be slow going, but I'm getting frustrated. At first, things felt great. My first few runs were perfect, I felt good, had a great pace. I was like everything was back in sync, it was what running should feel like. Alas that did not last. My last 3 runs have been filled with pain and cramping. Nothing like my injury so I think I'm safe in that respect. Some of this I asked for, last week I ran 6 days with 2 days being fast on the track. Stupid I know, but as I said earlier things felt good. I'm now paying for it. Went my longest distance on Sat, 5 miles, and didn't felt good for most of it. So I took Sunday off, rested from everything. Had high hopes about today's run, got out there in within a half mile started to feel it again. I can't help but get pissed at the fact that prior to the injury we were running 45-50 miles a week, average runs being 7-10 miles and now I can't handle 3-5 miles every other day. I'll get back there, I have to if another marathon is in my future and there is NO way I will rest until I have caught up with Joe in the marathon tally. Enough already with the complaining. Here are the good parts about returning to the road:

1. Even with the pain I have been able to keep my pace at over a min faster than my pace pre-injury.
2. I'm out there and able to run with Joe again.
3. It does not feel like the original injury is returning

I started to chat these to myself today as I struggled down the blvd tonight. Here's hoping that my backing off and running every other day I continue to improve.