Happy Monday friends! I hope your week is off to a great start!
Thanks to a cranky hamstring, my week of training didn’t go exactly as planned last week. I’m thankful that I was able to get in what I was though. I am hoping to resume training as normal next week and planning to continue rolling, icing and stretching like a champ.
Monday – Easy: 5 miles (8:56 pace)
My legs were a tad fatigued Monday morning after the half marathon long run combo that I did on Sunday. Daniel and I got up and got a loop in before work and it felt good to stretch out my legs some. I had an appointment with Dr. Ryan at Coastal Chiropractic Monday morning. I got a little bit off schedule with my weekly appointments (as in I went 3 weeks in between appointments instead of 1 week) and I could definitely tell a difference. My left glute, hamstring and IT band were screaming at me. This was foreshadowing of the rest of the week.
Tuesday AM – Easy: 5 miles (8:56 pace) + PM – Easy: 5 miles (9:12 pace)
Tuesday morning I ran easy on the treadmill … nothing fancy, just getting some easy miles in before work. At Girls on the Run Tuesday afternoon, we played a game that resembled freeze tag. The coaches had to chase the girls and if we caught them, they were frozen. While they were frozen, they had to think about how they would resolve a conflict with a friend, using scenarios that we gave them. Some of those little chickadees are FAST and I had to sprint to catch them. I don’t think I was properly warmed up (we do a warm up with the girls, but I think that maw-maw here likely needs a bit more of warm up than the girls do) and I tweaked my [already sensitive] hammy. I didn’t really realize this at the time, but looking back I’m fairly certain this is what happened.
Daniel and I ran a loop with Jessica Tuesday evening. I definitely knew that something was “off” with my hamstring at that point, but I figured it would loosen up as we went along. It wasn’t specifically bothering me to run easy, but I noticed that if I tried to pick the pace up at all (which meant lengthening out my stride), I was feeling a pull all the way down the back of my leg. No bueno.
Wednesday – Easy: 8 miles (8:50 pace) + AlterG: 7 miles (8:34 pace)
Being the stubborn runner that I am, I got up and ran Wednesday morning. I was supposed to do a wave tempo workout and I was actually really looking forward to it. You alternate between two paces (i.e., half marathon pace and 10K pace) every half mile during the tempo, which was scheduled to be 5 miles. As soon as we started running, I realized that I was NOT going to be able to do the workout. I had to admit that something was actually wrong with my hamstring at this point.
I went back to see Ryan again Wednesday after work and he diagnosed a mild hamstring strain, which is definitely better than … well, anything worse. He recommended taking a day or two off from regular running, but gave me the option of running on the Anti-Gravity treadmill in the meantime. I decided to go ahead and test that out to see how it felt Wednesday evening. I did 7 miles alternating between 50 – 75% body weight. I also ran on an incline, as your stride naturally shortens when running uphill and shorter strides felt fine on my leg.
Thursday – OFF
I let my legs rest completely on Thursday. My hamstring felt fine, but of course, that didn’t necessarily mean anything. I had Girls on the Run Thursday afternoon, but didn’t run with the girls. Hashtag self restraint. Hashtag sarcasm.
Friday – AlterG: 5 miles (8:34 pace)
I ran on the anti-gravity treadmill Friday afternoon. I ran at 75% body weight the whole run and played around with the incline again (alternating between 3 – 6%).
Saturday – Easy: 3.5 miles (8:30 pace)
I was originally planning to race a local Turkey Trot (you thought it was still October … yes … earliest Turkey Trot ever) that takes place less than a mile from the house. Oddly enough, this is the same race where I injured myself last year. In case you are new or don’t remember, I fell during the warm up and busted my face and knee up. It wasn’t fun. Here we are one year later and I wasn’t exactly able to *race* this year either (apparently the week of Halloween is meant to be a down week in the life of Sam).
The silver lining this year, however, was that I still got to run the race! As a pacer! My favorite thing! I ran with two of the Girls on the Run girls. I had a blast and they both came away with PRs, which was great. I was just happy to be able to participate in the race, after missing it unexpectedly last year.
Sunday – Easy: 9 miles (8:42 pace)
My hammy felt fine after Saturday’s run, so I got in a little bit longer run on Sunday, but nothing too crazy. I got to run with Jessica and Rebecca, which is always lovely. Rebecca even taught me how to use Instagram stories, which obviously makes me super cool and hip now. It was 41 degrees (feels like 38!) and windy for our run. We skipped right on over fall and got some winter temps!
Total – 35 miles + 12 miles (AlterG)
Bummer about the hamstring, but it sounds like you are managing through it really well. And yes- we went directly from summer to winter as well! I’m not a doctor, but my PT always tells me that if I have a strain, I shouldn’t stretch it, because that could aggravate it more. But you should listen to your PT if they tell you otherwise.
Bummer about the hamstring, but it sounds like you are managing through it really well. And yes- we went directly from summer to winter as well! I’m not a doctor, but my PT always tells me that if I have a strain, I shouldn’t stretch it, because that could aggravate it more. But you should listen to your PT if they tell you otherwise.