Today I Get to Run

April 2,2008
Yeah - a successful visit to the chiropractor and he says today I should try to run. I've been feeling pretty good and have been anxious to try it. The weather was awesome - just slightly under 60 and my training plan called for a 45 minute easy bike followed by an easy 15 minute run. Perfect! My bike ride was great - a little windy and a little cold on my face, but I couldn't wait to try running.

Post bike - change my shoes and walk down a long hill in preparation for a flat smooth trail run. I start off running and it's not bad but as I continue on, it feels like I have a bowling ball inside my leg - heavy and knotty feeling. But I keep running - I ran for twenty minutes and although it wasn't painful, it also wasn't pain free -- it was pained. My question is - is this OK? Will I need to run through a certain amount of pain before I'm back to normal - OR is is wrong to run with any pain.

Being that I'm almost 55, pretty much everything I do causes some sort of discomfort followed by some pain later and the next day -but it's that good kind of pain that says, I worked those muscles pretty good today.

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME. After I got home, I put an ice pack inside my bike shorts for 10 minutes. It was so cold that it felt like it was burning - you know what, I think it was burning!! Here's a helpful hint - don't put one of those freezer packs on your bare skin. I ate dinner and didn't really feel too bad - so that was sounding good. After sitting around working on my laptop, I stood up and the pain was just as bad as it had ever been. I had difficulty sleeping because everytime I turned - no matter which direction - it hurt!

April 3, 2008
I limped around all day today - this is not good. I think I'm back to where I was with the original injury and only ran 20 minutes! There's no way I could do a half marathon this Sunday - glad I decided that I wouldn't do it - I would've been severely disappointed.

Later in the evening, the pain has begun to dissipate somewhat - maybe it's not as bad as it originally was - maybe I'm a little better - we'll see. I really hate this!