The last day of summer and I began the day by walking Bennie with my winter jacket and gloves on in 34*F temps with a bit of a breeze. Not really what I expect when I think of the end of summer, but this is Maine and Mother Nature does what she wants when she wants to do it.

Oh well, as far as my running goes, it ended on Wednesday this week for probably the next 3-6 weeks as I heal from my latest episode of Harold being Harold. Yeah, I took a dinger off the side of the tub when soap suds, a slick bath tub and a clumsy oaf decided to test the tolerances of the tub’s side wall. Needless to say I found out the hard way that the tub’s side wall is tougher than my side wall aka my ribs.

More than likely I have 2-3 cracked ribs and a nice bruise just below my hip. Neither one is really conducive to running, but the cracked ribs have really put a crimp in my style. So I am on the shelf until I can breathe deeply without wincing in pain or being able to get up from a sitting position without thinking about how to lessen the pain as I do it.

The good news is that I am able to walk without as much discomfort as I felt on Thursday, but still enough that when I get done with the walk, I am pretty worn out. This pain/discomfort stuff does wear on the body and mind, which in turn, for me at least, I really don’t have any motivation to do a lot after short walks other than taking a short nap.

I had a good week started with over 17 miles after my run on Wednesday and Tuesday’s No Track workout had left me feeling more confident about the direction I was headed.

Monday – Wildwood O/B. I was just starting my warm-up routine when I got a phone call from a neighbor to help him out with his computer. I had told him I would help if he needed help, but the timing rather sucked. However, I said I would so I headed over and after a bit, got his Chromebook working again, it took about half an hour, I had to reset the whole system, walk him through the Google security stuff and get all his passwords reset. Once all that was done, I was not really into the run, but did it anyway. Nothing special about the run other than I did it. It was supposed to be easy and that is what I did 4.1/38:22.

Tuesday – No Track Tuesday. The weather was crisp and very Fall-like in other words a joy to be running in, just one problem my No track course, the quarter and 200’s face North – guess which direction the 4-10 mph breeze was coming from. 🙂 Of course my timing was impeccable as usual and while the repeats were reasonable, the headwind could be felt without any doubts. Quarters – 1:54, 1:57, 2:00, 2:02, 2:01, 2:03 / 200’s – 1:01, 1:00, 0:58, 0:57, 0:59, 0.54 and throw in a lap around Howard Circle in between the two at my second fastest time ever. No the times are not spectacular, but they are about where I would expect them to be for the second speedwork since July.

To be honest, I am not digging too deep into the well and only giving about 80% effort to protect my delicate hamstrings as they get used to the idea of running a little quicker than I have been for a while. It serves zero purpose for me to run 90 second quarters and blow out a hammie because I got greedy and did too much too soon. I will get there again, but I will take my time and progress at the clip my body can sustain. I was quite happy with how I ran compared to last week, even though the times were slower, there was more sustained effort.

Wednesday – The Ridges – TOP 7.0 Miler. I ran this with the idea of just getting to the finish line, not really worried about time or anything else. In other words I ran comfortably and even rocked out to my playlist with my new earbuds (wired kind). I did have to take a quick walk in the woods and then stopped to say hi to F.L and his wife. He ain’t looking so good and has a bunch of health issues – not good, but like he said “I ain’t having too much fun growing old, but still out here walking and doin stuff.” Kind of tough seeing him that way, but he is still out trying, so that is good. Other than that I plodded along and finished the run in 7.02/1:05:42. Not all that fast, but I was able to keep moving along and actually finished this course about a minute faster than I did back in July, so that was something I wasn’t expecting.

Thursday – DNR

Friday – DNR

Saturday – DNR

Sunday – DNR

The Did Not Run (DNR) entries will pile up over the next few weeks and while I am not all that great with not running, cracked ribs do inhibit my natural desire to come back to running before I should. Therefore, if nothing else good comes out of this non-running injury, I am hoping that the forced down-time will allow other parts of the body to fully heal.

Any way I look at it, I am pretty sure that I will not be running for at least three weeks. Not what I want, but it is what I have to work with, so I will continue to do what I can.

Also this only doing one post with my weekly runs is over. I will go back to daily posts, when I start running again. This just is not working for me.