Training

Pretty much have been putting everything on Strava.  I keep my race schedule and results updated on the blog.

I've been doing low mileage, but run most of runs faster.  Not sure how everyone runs so slow and expects to race fast.  But to each their own.  Probably if I ran much more than 7 miles a day I'd have to run slow too.  My endurance sucks, but
1-mile to 10 miles, I'm ready to roll.

X-train day, then steady run up Cadillac mnt.

41 minutes on bike trainer on Sunday. 

Monday I said screw it, rest wasn't helping leg.

Decided to at least get a good steady effort in.  Best way to do that is run up Cadillac mnt. From Ledgelawn.  Starts pretty gradual, then gets steeper.

Goal was to run sub 50 to store on top.  49 low, so pretty surprised.  Ran back to blue hill overlook where my dad was waiting to pick me up.  7.7 miles total, 6:50 avg. Pace

Day off, failed run, race

Took another day off.

Tried to run on Friday, made it about 5 steps, too much pain, stopped.

Saturday I got out of work at 7am, had some food, headed over to Sea of Blue 5-k.

Warmed up 5-k.  Leg was hurting pretty good.  As long as I kept moving it was manageable.

Goal for 5-k was to run 5:30 pace.  First mile was downhill so I ran 5:15.  Second mile rolled and I hit 5:29.

Last mile starts uphill for first 3/4 of it.  All I needed to do was be at 5:45, ran 5:42.

Last .10 was closer to .16 and took me 48 seconds, so a sub 17:00 effort turned into 17:15.

Didn't cooldown, just walked around a bit. 

Plan is to try and get leg better this week, race another 5-k next week and another one week after that.

Easy runs, day off, short workout

Monday I managed a painful 3.5 miles.  Tuesday was less pain but still there, 4 miles.  Really weird, the faster I go and the longer I go the better it usually feels.

Wednesday I took the day off just to see if that would help at all.  Not really, it hurt all day.

Thursday I went up to the track.  Warmed up 1.7 miles.  The first couple of laps the pain was crazy, but then it settled down.

I wanted to do some 1000 meter repeats at about 5:20 pace.  Went 3:15,3:20,3:15.  Didn't feel hard, but I didn't feel like I could go much faster and I was more out of breath than I should have.  I did only take 200 meter jog rests in 55-60 seconds and I had trainers on, so I guess that's a plus.

After a few minutes of walking around I did 400 meters to see if I could still run 5:00 pace.  managed 70 seconds and it didn't feel super hard.  So maybe I just need to do a bunch of 400's and slowly increase the distance as I get in better shape.

1.6 cooldown at 6:00 pace felt easy. 

Feel like I'm not fit, but also feel like I should be more out of shape with the lack of training the last 5 weeks.

Going to see the doctor again next week for the 4th time.  Not sure if there is some sort of injury that the bite caused, or if its just the bite.  Pain changes places from heel to upper calf.

I tried a few things today.  Heel walks are pain free, so I would say that rules out bone issues.  Heel walks hurt more, but aren't terrible.  Definetly going downhill feels better, and going uphill my shin muscles start to hurt because I'm over compensating for something else.  Again running downhill less pain means probably not bone.  I think whatever bite me much have inflamed some soft tissue in there.  I still have 7 more days of the doxy, hopefully that helps. 

I'm gonna have to find some local 5-k's to run to start getting fit again.  Nothing like racing to get fit.  Just a hard thing to do after racing at the level I was at in February and March. 

The only other thing i can think of is I know right about when all this happened I was snowshoeing and I remember hitting the inside of my leg a few times with the metal on the snowshoe and maybe that hurt something.  Don't know.

Day off followed by long run

Got ready yesterday, went out door, took about 5 steps and walked home in pain.  Leg is good sometimes, sometimes not.

Sunday I had plans to meet up with Knickerbocker for a tour of the park loop road.  Since Nov. I've gotten a handful of 15-16 milers in, but this was going to be longer and I was unsure about leg after yesterday.

Leg wasn't terrible, and once I got through a handful of miles it got really good.  Weird.  Not super fast, but with the last 4 weeks mostly wasted, I was pretty happy with the run.  19.1 miles, just over 2:06.  Some good elevation gains. 

Bite mark finally looks like it's starting to heal.  Leg still hurts at times, but it's definitely not a running injury if I can do what I did yesterday.

Should have my new training plan done this week.  Gonna skip the US masters 10-k champs this weekend with the shit training I've had the last 4 weeks.  Very sad, since it's the only us masters champs race in new england this year.  But there is no point to go down and run a minute slower than I could have a month ago.

Might do a local 5-k this weekend to start racing myself back into shape.

Easy run

3.5 miles. 

Wow, fitness has gone to shit.  Taking 72 hours off from everything didn't help with pain.  Leg felt same if not better once I started running. 

So from this moment I'm going to run every day.  Bite wound does not seem to want to heal,  even with antibiotics.   Definitely not running injury.  Almost no pain running at about 1-2% downhill.  Running slightly up hurts, steep uphill or down feels good. 

This is getting kind of stupid.  All I managed to do the last 24 days is get in piss poor shape and now I'm gonna miss a bunch of competitive races I wanted to run.  I'm pissed.

Days off

Went to doctor again, then orthopedic office.  Everyone agrees it's some sort of bite, so another 14 days of doxycycline. 

Plus some anti inflammation meds.

Leg goes back and forth.  Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn't, different things hurt, weird.  One thing that stays the same is going up stairs bothers it.

Going down is fine. 

Going to just leg rest for a few days and not even chance running to aggravate it.