Run: 60 minutes of easy distance, hilly
Distance: 6.4 miles
Time: 60:07
Performance Stats (out of 5 ★)
Legs: ★ ★ .5
Gut: ★ ★ ★
Energy: ★ ★ ★
Mind: ★ ★ ★
Overall: ★ ★ ★
Soundtrack: The Crystal Method, Vegas
Due to a calamity of events, I ended up running the weekend distance run this Sunday morning, rather than Saturday. All in all not too bad, but it did have one major consequence - a little slow to go, and SORE legs. Why so sore? Well, yard work. I did a fair amount of hedge trimming on Saturday, and picking up the brush all day did a job on my hamstrings. Both hamstrings were WAY wound up for the run.
I'm fairly sensitive to my hamstrings after a major hamstring pull last fall. I was beginning to get to a great 5K pace (my short term goal is 23:30), and I was looking forward to the mecca of races for me, The Manchester Road Race, held on Thanksgiving morning. I was trying to set myself up for a 23:30 pace on the treadmill in the gym a few weeks prior, when one mile into the run, BAM, the left hamstring let loose.
Now, I've broken a few bones, twisted some ankles, and pulled some muscles before, but this was the real deal. It was almost as if someone had come up behind me with a broomstick handle and whacked me in the back of my left leg. I managed to pull the emergency release button and got off the machine. Immediately it hit me that I would not be running in the Thanksgiving race - and really, as minor a thing as that is, I felt this overwhelming sadness come over me. I can only imaging what real athletes feel like with injury!
So I hobbled around for three days, and was out for three months. It wasn't until this past summer that I got back into the swing of things, but seriously, this leg has not been the same. Now that I'm building up distance and speed again, I am quite sensitive to how my hamstrings feel - both of them. I can feel that the more I strengthen them with hills and distance, the tighter and tighter they get. The only solution - stretching. Now I don't mind stretching, but it's not something that I did a lot in the past. I guess this is what you get when you start getting older! Smarter running and more stretching!