Things fall apart

03/21/2010 - 03/27/2010

As Chinua Achebe says, things fall apart. I guess sometimes you can help the process along too. I got so excited after last week, that I did something stupid. To my credit, I haven't done anything stupid for a good long while. Sometimes though, the one time you don't look before you cross the street is when you get mashed by a car. I think I strained some hip and groin muscles pretty severely. As in, to get out of bed, I have to use my hands to lift up my right leg because my hip flexors have completely stopped functioning. Gah.


Sunday 03/21: 14.3 miles, 2:12:14 (9:15 min/mile) High Line Canal Trail (Denver)
I wasn't feeling awesome after yesterday's run, so I was disinclined to do a long run today, especially if it involved more than 2 laps of the park. So Peter plunked me down at a nice trail head so that I would have the motivation to do a proper long run. Given feeling crappy and being at altitude, the original plan was to do 10 miles, nice and easy. Unfortunately the trail was marked at 0.5 mile intervals, and there's something about demarcations that make me want to say "just one more!". Started out feeling unusually good, despite the fact that there were some pretty rough spots where snow and slush had made the trail a quagmire of shoe sucking mud.

I had to backtrack a little bit after getting lost, but the 5 mile marker came and went pretty happily. I had started to notice some twinges in my R hip, but figured it was a cramp and would work itself out. Then the 6 mile marker was kind of in an unsatisfyingly un-scenic location, so I decided to make it a 14 miler like last week. It was only when I reached the turnaround point, that I realized that I was actually quite tired... but there were 7 miles left to get back. Miles 8 - 11 felt like pulling teeth, but I was hanging on to 9 minute miles... then with ~3 miles to go, I was totally out of gas. It hit almost instantaneously like a ton of bricks... I imagined that this might be what it feels like to "hit the wall" in a marathon, but I was done. I slowed to a shuffle and even so, I had to stop to stretch my hip at every mile, was completely dehydrated and could barely sustain my 10-11 minute mile pace. At last, after 30+ minutes, the car became visible and I have never been so glad, nor so unsure that I would manage the last 50 meters without walking. So, so, so, so, so, tired.

Monday 03/22: 1.25 miles, 9:47 (7:50 min/mile) 4 x North Field Laps (barefoot)
A little shake out after work. Felt completely drained and achey and sore all day, but somehow it all dissipated for the short duration of this wonderful barefoot run. It's sort of like... impossible to run any slower when I'm barefoot!

Tuesday 03/23: 5.3 miles, 47:11 (8:54 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Today was the first indication that something was seriously wrong. Beyond being sore and achey, this run... hurt. Every step on my right side felt like a weird stabbing pain in my R hip. It became somewhat bearable after 10 steps or so, but didn't let up throughout the entire run. Afterwards, R hip hurt doing my exercises, and then I could barely walk the rest of the day. Felt awful.

Wednesday 03/24: Off. Still hard to walk, ergo... no run :(

Thursday 03/25: 5.3 miles, 44:52 (8:28 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Felt significantly better after a day off, so tried another short run. Felt a lot better than Tuesday, but I could definitely feel my R hip with every step. Thought it was getting better, but towards the end of the day things started to clench up and complain loudly basically through the entirety of my R hip/groin/upper thigh area. So painful it really wasn't possible to figure out exactly what was hurting.

Friday 03/26: Off. Pain seems to be getting worse. Can't lift R leg really at all, have to walk funny... like I'm about to do a faceplant with every step. Still can't really pinpoint what exactly is wrong, but it seems like the groin, hip flexors and upper IT band are involved at a minimum. R quads also really sore, that's not helping either.

Saturday 03/27: Off. No improvement from yesterday. Still hard to walk/lift up R leg. Very unhappy.

Week Total: 26.2 miles, I have this bad feeling that a lot of time off is forthcoming...