Real-ish running

I'm now able to run, albeit at a feeble pace and with a slight gimp, but overall not too bad. Yesterday in the morning I did a four mile run without stopping to stretch or walk. I saw that as a major improvement and a bit of a breakthrough. In the afternoon I got a super intense deep tissue massage and went for another run (this time about 4.5 miles) a few hours later. Certainly an encouraging development and something I can build on.

This morning I got up and went out for another slow, easy jog. Yesterday and today I was able to get close to my recovery run pace of around 7:00/mile. This morning started slower while I worked through some pains, and by a couple miles things were feeling good. Mind you, even when things are "good," I'm dealing with some fairly moderate pain in my upper hamstring. I'd give it a 4/10. I know that running through injuries isn't good practice, but I feel I'm in a unique position right now with the timing of the Trials coming up. I'm rapidly losing fitness. I feel that I need to squeeze every bit of running out of myself when my body allows. It doesn't do me much good to show up to the Trials healthy but horribly out of shape. I need to find a balance where I'm limiting my fitness lost but also maximizing my ability to heal. Admittedly, a bit of a balancing act.

Towards the end of my run this morning my right hip started to tighten up and I began to lose some sensation in my whole right leg. My hamstring was so tight, and perhaps traumatized from the massage yesterday that I think it was pinching my nerve and causing a sort of dead leg feeling. I walked it in to the house for the last half mile or so but thankfully didn't feel discouraged. 1) I am doing more running now than I have in the past 10 days. 2) The massage yesterday was so intense that my hamstring needs some time to bounce back. In the longer term (tomorrow and several days down the line) hopefully things will spring back to normal a little bit. I've heard multiple times that deep tissue massages (even when you're used to them, as I am) cause your muscles to only temporarily loosen up--they spring back the other way and get tight again--before ultimately relaxing. It's a process and far from an immediate fix.

So here I am getting ready to head out on another 5 mile easy jog. Ali taped up my hamstring with KT tape this morning and I feel better than I did when I woke up. Hopefully this run will end up better than the first. If not, there's always tomorrow.

AH