A Couple Days Early – RunLog 5/31/14

Yeah, I know – the Chiro told me not to run until I see him again on Monday.

Guess what – I didn’t listen 😉

What else is new!

I followed directions better than usual (I made it from Tuesday until this morning), but since I started really focusing (in other words, beating the hell out of both legs), doing eccentric exercises on Thursday – my left hamstring has felt amazingly better. Even my right leg is feeling a big difference.

This morning I was doing a 3.0 mile walk with Bennie and I got the phone call to go pick up the lawn mower that I dropped off to be fixed yesterday, at 10:30 and he said that he closed at noon.

Which meant that I had to haul ass to get home – load-up the other lawn mower (which is leaking gasoline like a sieve), find Mary on her running route and drive up to Fairfield.

In order to get all that done and still get 1/2 hour drive and a half hour dog walk home, that I had to run from The Bog to home with Bennie. Now that was only a 1.5 miles, but it was an adventure, Bennie is not a good running companion, but he LOVES to run.

He pulls this way and that, wants to go 10 million miles an hour (so he got his resistance training, hauling a 155 pound anchor) and then stop on a dime to sniff something or try to head off into the woods. So I got quite an upper body workout and found out that my hamstring didn’t bother, while running (even with the uneven ground, hills and a half-crazy Jack Russell trying to pull my arm out of its socket.

I felt more uncoordinated and ungainly than anything, it was like my body had forgotten how to run, I guess after all the time-off in May and all the closed-chain work I have been doing, it will take a bit to get used to the changes that I am making in my running or is that to my running.

We made it home and got there at 11:45 or so, to drop off my newer one and pick-up the first broken down lawn mower that we bought at a yard sale last weekend for $10.00, it cost $40.00 to fix it. Not too shabby a deal for a Craftsman rear-bagger, big wheel mower. It worked great later in the afternoon. As my shoulders found out, it is definitely not self-propelled.

While we were in Fairfield, we stopped Hillman’s Bakery. I haven’t had their stuff since I left teaching at Lawrence Junior High – tastes just as good as I remembered. I love their cinnamon-sugar doughnuts. Three of them disappeared down the piggy’s gullet :-). I am so glad that we don’t live any where near this place, it is very dangerous to my waist line.

When we got home, I told the wife, I was going to run 3.0 miles, because the hamstring felt fine. She told me to just do 2.0, since I had already run 1.5 and I just said okay, but I still planned to do the 3.0 miles.

When I started out, I still felt uncoordinated, things just didn’t flow for me until after the first mile. Just past the mile part I was feeling pretty good, and Murphy our neighbor’s lab came bounding out at me. He is not a problem and I just held him for the owner to come get him. It didn’t take that long, but it felt like it did.

The second mile felt really good, but I could tell that my legs were tired. The good thing was that the hamstrings in both legs felt the same – sore. That is great news – it means that I am working them and muscle soreness is okay, that goes away.

But damn, TheWife was right again and I shut it down just past 2.0. As crazy and ramshackle a runnah as I may be, I can also tell when enough is enough. 2.0 miles was just enough to get things moving again, but not enough for tired legs to get re-injured.

The best part of the run was that after it was done, there was no pain in the hamstring and when I mowed the lawn a little later, it didn’t bother me. It felt tired and little sore (like the right hammie), but no pain.

Since I started to really focus on the eccentric exercises and moved away from icing my leg, along with the traditional hamstring stretching, my hamstring has improved immensely. It might be coincidence or timing, but I don’t think so. From a lot of what I have read, active recovery and eccentric work is becoming a treatment option for tendon/muscle strains/pulls.

There is a lot of work showing that the rest, ice, compress and elevate, then initiate a stretching program, wait for the pain to go away may not be the only or best alternative for those sort of injuries.

The reality is that

I needed this run today — badly. I was becoming a grouch and a lot less patient than my normal self.

Yes, I plan to run comfortably tomorrow too.

I might only do 1-2 miles, but I plan to run as long as there is no pain. Muscle soreness is okay.

Yeah, I disobeyed the medical professional’s recommendation – yet again (never said I am or would be a great patient that part of me will never go away), I ran comfortably, didn’t break anything and feel good about my running again.I can feel the difference that the closed chain and one-legged exercises are making and I noticed that my cadence (once I warmed-up) felt quicker and my arm swing was much more compact.

Now if I could just figure out what that damn clicking is in my hamstring, when I am doing eccentric face down hamstring curls at about the 90% down point. Probably some scar tissue in there being annoying.

Any way it felt good to be back out there running, now to just keep it easy for a few weeks, not be totally stupid and keep doing my rehab work consistently.