Mon: 5 miles
Tue: 10 miles
Wed: 4 miles
Thu: 0 – Day Off
Fri: 0 – Day Off
Sat: 0 – Day Off
Sun: 15 miles
Total: 34 miles
This was about what I wanted for the first of two down weeks, although I admit that taking off three days in a row then running a 15-miler was probably not the wisest thing I’ve ever done. However, my goal for basically the entire month of November is to walk the fine line of letting my body rest and recover from the past seven months of fairly hard training while not losing too much of the fitness I gained during that time, so I’m trying to make sure I have at least a few “quality” runs here and there and the long run was one of those.
My calf/shin continues to improve ever since I started the Graston treatment. I’m not out of the woods yet by any means, but I’m optimistic I may have found something that will finally fix this problem. If Dr. Bailey at RACVA was correct, the root cause of the problem has always been scar tissue and adhesions built up along my shin as the result of several stress fractures I’ve had there over the years. According to him, the only way I would ever be pain free was to break up the scar tissue and adhesions so they would no longer rub and irritate the surrounding area. Dr. Walker at Balance says she can already tell a difference in the amount of scar tissue and adhesions I have as well as in how deep she can get when doing the treatment. That seems to jive with how I’m feeling, so again, I’m optimistic.
I have developed a new issue, however, that started around the same time I started the treatment on my calf. My hip flexors have been sore/tight on almost every run. They were actually so tight during the Sunday long run that about halfway through I was seriously wondering whether or not I would be able to finish. Dr. Walker has also been working on my hips and alignment in general in addition to doing Graston, and she told me that I might get some soreness in new areas as a result. Her theory is that as I bring everything into alignment, certain areas that have been inhibited and not doing the work they should have been doing for quite some time now may get sore as they start to activate for the first time in a while. That seems to make sense, but I don’t know if it’s the cause or not. All I know is three days off didn’t do anything to make my hip flexors feel better, and may have actually made them worse, so I need to figure out what’s going on and definitely address it before I start training harder when December rolls around. I’m going to work on some stretching and strengthening in my hips and hamstrings and see if that will do the trick.
This week will be another down week before getting back to work next week. I’ll probably front load the week a bit again so that I can take it easier the last few days when I’ll be off work. I’m actually starting to get the itch to train hard again and look forward to resuming a normal schedule. That’s a good thing, because a couple weeks ago I was borderline burned out and definitely lacking in motivation and desire. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and here’s looking forward to the Christmas season!
No comments:
Post a Comment