fragile

today is day seven of my break from running. a week ago a concerning injury emerged in the midst of a beautiful trail run at wilson’s creek national battlefield. this is difficult for me on multiple levels. i am registered to run my first half-marathon on march 15th in little rock. i am also registered to run my first marathon on may 3rd in cincinnati. my self diagnosis of the injury is that it is a repetitive stress injury (r.s.i.). for me it came out of nowhere. i was being diligent to “listen to my body” and was very thankful that all of my parts were painlessly cooperating with my training. i had to take one small break from running due to a minor groin injury, but after a five days of not running it totally recovered.

the week that the r.s.i. emerged i was very pumped about my running. i did a speed workout at a local track and was buzzing off my performance.

part of the treatment process is attempting to locate one’s training error so as to avoid repeating those same errors in the future. i think my error had to do with intensity. i think my body dealt marvelously with my increases in mileage over the last couple of months, but i think my recent obsession with improving my pace combined with the increases in mileage is what put me into the danger zone.

now the focus has to do with the proper healing of my injury. i am committed to low stress training for at least another week. i intend to test my leg on march 12th to prepare myself for what i might experience pounding out 13.1 miles during the “little rock half-marathon”. my hope is to avoid both the danger of reversing the healing process and the danger of undoing the accomplished healing. i am pretty confident that no physician would support me participating in the “little rock” event given the time frame of when my injury emerged and the recommended recovery time. i guess i am hoping that i am somewhat unique and that my body can recover two times faster than most. another hope is that maybe this is only a minor r.s.i. and therefore i will be ready to go come march 15th.

following “little rock” i will need to take some time to evaluate my training plans for the remaining weeks leading up to the “flying pig marathon”. it is possible that i will need to put running back on the shelf for a few weeks and prepare via low stress cross training activities.

at this point i am humbled by this injury. i was starting to think that maybe i was indestructible with regards to my return to endurance fitness. i have learned that i too am fragile.

damn it!!!

[p.s.: i am not interested in feedback along the lines of “don’t do ‘little rock’” – the above is my plan and i will have more data to help me know if my plan is even close to being sound after my test run on march 12th]