Birthday Bike Ride and the Emotion of Injury

Today is my birthday, and by coincidence it was also my 9/80 day off. So I spent the day goofing off. I watched some TV, including a movie called Red River starring John Wayne (good one.)

About the only thing "productive" that I've done, other than one load of dishes, is going for a 12 mile leisurely bike ride. I would have preferred to go on a 12 mile run instead, but I'm saving that up for tomorrow as a do-or-die run with Cory. Either I can run without pain or else I have to take another week off before trying again.

Stephanie organized a run from Memorial, through River Oaks, along the Bayou to downtown, and back to Memorial. Cory and I might cut it short and head to my house after we get to the bayou.

During these last ten days I've gained at least five pounds and probably added fifteen seconds to my best mile pace over any distance. I'm upset that I was running my best and now I'm looking at the possibility of not running at all for two or more weeks. Don't get me wrong, I'm hopeful that everything will be ok tomorrow, but I'm not willing to push through that kind of pain because a rupture in the Achilles Tendon could sideline me for a long time.

No Will's hills, no tempo runs, no long runs, no training runs with the Tornados. It's killing me, but I'm also aware that until now, I've been extremely lucky that I never had to take more than a couple of days off due to injury. Every runner gets injured. The thing that's killing me is that I'm not really injured . . . I'm just flirting with injury and I know my best shot to avoid injury is to take a break.

I know all three of my readers don't want to hear all of these complaints, but I'm really interested in documenting this for personal (and historical) reasons. One of these days I'll reference back to this to try to get an idea how I coped with injury, so thanks for bearing with me.

My predominant emotion is guilt. A true athlete in my situation would do core exercises, swim often (I swam only once, 10x50 sprints after a warm up for 30 mins total), hit the weights, go to a doctor, ice it regularly, use compression, take Advil religiously, curtail the diet. The only thing I really committed to was resting; because it was easy. I don't understand why I will push so incredibly hard while I'm running, but not give even 10% of that kind of effort toward getting better and keeping up my shape while I heal.

The bright spot is that the race season is over now that the heat is here, and it's too early to start training for the Houston marathon. But I still need to be there for Cory at the Ogden Marathon -- I only wish it was a month away instead of eight days from now.

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TDLY - 5/8/08 - Memorial Park with Julie, 4.03 miles, 36:04, 8:56 pace, Max HR = 170, Avg HR = 150. This was my first and only experience running through the 50 yard trail just east of Memorial park -- it was ankle deep in mud. Blog Entry Last Year.
5/9/08 - Kenyan Way 2 Warm Up, Kenyan Way 2 plus Warm Down, Max HR = 178, Avg HR = 157 -- This KW session coincided with the last PIM. I missed the Mystery Run, but I made it back in time to say goodbye to my coaches (Stephanie and Joe) and thank them for their help. It's interesting being on the flip side of that transaction, now that I just finished a "semester" of KW as a coach. Blog Entry Last Year.