First day back, again

Yesterday was the first day I went on a run since I hurt myself and my grandma died. I'd been getting antsy about not running or working out and eating garbage for last couple of weeks. I was afraid to actually weigh in, I was convinced that I'd just about erased all the hard work I did earlier in the year. I was nicely surprised that I was actually still slightly under 200 pounds.

I took extra long to strech out this time. Pookie sent me an email a couple of days ago with her opinion that my long runs were probably either a cause or at least partially responsible for my constant injuries. While allowing for the fact that she is both smarter than I am generally and knows more about running than I do, I have to disagree with her. My long runs would generally consist of 10-15k (roughly 6-10 miles). I don't think that is necessarily a problem to start running that distance. Granted, it takes a couple of weeks to gradually ramp up to those distances. Also, I wasn't running those distances at a particularly speedy pace. My iPod puts my usual 5k pace at about 6-6:30 min/k and I was running longer distances at roughly 7-8 min/k. So that wasn't the problem.

What I think causes most of my injury problems are bad equipment, lack of stretching/cross-training, and lack of rest. The bad equipment problem was most pronounced when I first started running. I bought the wrong shoes without going to a running store and getting my feet checked out. Big big big mistake. I would hurt myself roughly every 3 weeks, with various degrees of pain. I've solved that problem (and hurt myself when I did) by getting my feet checked out. I bought the proper shoes and some comfy socks which seem to have solved that problem. The other two problems are still a problem though. I don't think I strech out enough before or after a run. I always try to, but I don't think it's enough. I should also be doing more weightlifting/non-running exercise, especially for my legs. The final problem is probably the worst. From the reading I've been doing various running and exercise magazines, the good effects of running stick with you for about 2 days or so. That means you can run one day and still have a heightend metabolism and healthiness for a couple of days. I haven't been paying attention to that. I'll go running on a monday and do it again as early as possible on wed. Or I'll do a long run and follow it up with a short run the next day. I'm simply not able to do that and I should know that by now. For example, this current injury happened becuase I ran Race Judicata on a Thursday, The adventure race (which was close to 5 miles of running) on that saturday or sunday, then shortly after that, I did a endurance training. What killed me was not that I ran a particularly long distance, it was that I didn't recover enough and my body simply gave out. What I should have done was run those two races and then spend the next couple of days lifting and streching.

So, back to the point here. I went out yesterday with the intent to do a slow recovery 5k to get back into the swing of things. I also was feeling gross from not working out and stressed out about various things. Not to mention that I have to start getting ready for the Bucktown 5k in a couple weeks. I saw there was a Sox game on so I made a snap decision to run passed Comisky and check out the crowd. Everything was fine until I got to the corner of 35th and the Dan Ryan. There was a girl passing out some sort of Quaker Oat Snacks. Unfortunatly for her, there was a perfect convergance of crap. Right as I started to approach her, I noticed a large crowd of people coming and if I didn't speed up I would either have to run through them, stop, or run all the way around. Also, at that particular moment, Pennywise came on the iPod. Without thinking I started to sprint through the gap between the Oat Girl and the crowd. Right as I started to pass her, she stuck out her hand to get ready to hand someone some oat snacks. Yup, right as she did that my hand pumped forward and I punched that damn oat snack right out of her hand.

My own mental compulsion wouldn't let my legs stop sprinting. So I did the manly thing and blurted out "sorry" as I watched the oat snack skitter across the ground. I didn't even look at her face, I was too embarassed. I just ran away as fast as I could. I felt pretty bad about it later, and thought about going back, but I didn't.

The rest of the run was good. I had some phantom pains in my legs, but at this point I know the difference between actually have to stop pain, and my body just making shit up. when I got done with the 5k of running I walked and cooled off for about another k. My legs were rubbery and sore, but in a good way. I'd like to run again on Friday, but I'll be busy. That's probably a good thing.