Training Summary: 9/1 - 9/7

Mon: AM - 7.5 miles; PM - 4.5 miles
Tue: AM - 4.5 miles; PM - 7.5 miles
Wed: 0 - Day off for right hamstring
Thu: 0 - Day off for right hamstring
Fri: 5 miles
Sat: 0 - Day off for right hamstring
Sun: 0 - Day off for right hamstring
Total: 29 miles

This obviously wasn’t the week I wanted. After back-to-back weeks with mileage in the mid-70’s and some decent workouts, I really felt like I was getting things back on track. However, I made the mistake of trying to fix something that wasn’t necessarily broken and paid the price accordingly.

In an attempt to help my legs recover faster, I tried some new shoes, which I will leave nameless at this point in time. While they had the most cushioning of any shoe I’ve ever run in, from the very first run I just didn’t feel comfortable in them. In fact, the second time I headed out in them I got progressively more uncomfortable, to the point I couldn’t wait for the run to end. After that run, my hamstrings didn’t feel good for a couple of days, and I pretty much swore them off. However, on Monday, I decided to give them one more try, and I did both my runs that day in them. That turned out to be a big mistake, as the next day I woke up with a sore right hamstring. I initially thought it was something I could work through because it seemed to loosen up as I ran, but after a couple runs on Tue, it was worse on Wed, prompting me to take two days off. I tried running again on Fri and felt alright for the most part, only to wake up worse on Sat and have to take the weekend off.

As of now, I still don’t feel like this is anything major, but it’s already cost me four of the last five days, so it’s quickly becoming more serious than I originally thought. I hope to resume running sometime early this week and be able to make a go of it from there, but it’s definitely a setback I didn’t need. After a poor August where I missed 7 out of 21 days at one point, my fitness was already behind where I needed it to be if I was going to race well this fall, and this kills what little bit of momentum I had started to build. I’m not going to hang ‘em up just yet, but I’m really starting to wonder if I will ever race well as a Masters runner. I’m 14 months into that class now, and I’ve raced just 5 times total, with none of them being anything stellar. I know I’ve still got time, but the clock is definitely ticking and I’m not even making any progress. All I can do is keep plugging away, but I’m definitely frustrated and getting less and less optimistic.