Checking In

Like I mentioned would probably be the case, it’s been a while since my last post, but I thought I would check in with another. It’s now been 39 days since I woke up with my hamstring hurting the day after Labor Day, and today will make the 23rd day I’ve taken completely off from running during that time. I’ve also tried up to six days in a row off, all sorts of stretches, massage, foam rolling, etc., several different anti-inflammatories from Aleve and ibuprofen to natural alternatives like turmeric and ginger, and I made one trip to the chiropractor, all to no avail.

After weeks of 8, 8, and 12 miles, at the start of this week I was feeling about as good as I’ve felt so far and decided that since a few days of rest at a time doesn’t seem to knock this out I would try to push my way through it for a little bit and see what happened. I made it three days in a row, doing runs of 5, 5, and 6 miles. By Thursday, I was definitely getting gradually worse, so I decided to pull the plug. Quite honestly I simply came to the conclusion that I was tired of going around in some level of constant pain and just didn’t feel like dealing with it anymore.

That said, I’m done running until I’m 100% completely pain free, a point I haven’t reached anytime during the last six weeks. I have no idea how long it might take to get there, but based on how things have gone so far, I have a feeling it could be a while. The only reason I haven’t done this earlier is I was hoping to salvage some level of fitness and maybe be able to race towards the end of the year. However, any chance I had of that is now shot, so I’ll just take as long as I need and come back whenever my body says I’m ready. In the meantime, I’m killing off all the stretching, strengthening, etc. I’ve been doing as well. Obviously it wasn’t putting me on the fast track towards a return to running and it may have just been irritating things and delaying the healing, so I figure I might as well just rest and let my body do its thing. As for cross-training, sitting makes this injury worse, so biking is out. Also, I can actually feel some pain just getting in and out of bed, so I have a feeling even swimming would aggravate it, so again, I think the best strategy is complete rest. I’d consider getting treatment, but it’s hard to justify spending the money.

As for future running, I’m undecided at this point. I’ll definitely always run at least some because I enjoy it and it helps keep me sane. Whether or not I resume what I call “training,” however, is definitely up in the air. Running the amount it takes for me to compete at a high level requires a lot of time and effort. As those close to me know, it’s been a long, frustrating journey for me over the last 10+ years. I feel like I’ve fought a good fight and made every effort to give myself a shot at running fast and it just hasn’t worked out. It may be time to pull the plug and just run for fun and fitness. Like I said, I remain undecided because I would still like to take a shot at Masters competition, but to be quite honest, the idea of 20-30 miles a week of relatively easy, fun running sounds a whole lot better than 70-80 miles a week of beating my head against a wall. And for those of you who might be wondering, yes, I know there’s a middle ground, but I’ve found that 50-60 miles a week just makes me mediocre when it comes to competing. I can certainly enjoy running without racing, so if I’m going to compete, I want to be all in. Otherwise I’d rather just run for fun and skip the competitions.

So there it is. Not sure when there will be another update to the blog. That will depend on lots of things. In the meantime, I wish you well.