Running with Jack

I went on a nice slow recovery run last night. My colleagues at work laugh when I say “14K recovery run” (14K = 8.7 miles). Most can only dream about running that far. I couple years back I could only dream about it too!

My legs were really stiff, but the muscle in the back of my right leg that was giving me problems on my half-marathon on Saturday seemed to be okay. I took it really easy, finishing the run in about 89 minutes (84 being my average). I was also digging garden beds yesterday so I was really concerned about over doing it. This morning I am REALLY stiff, my legs are sore, my shoulders also. I have a couple blisters on my hands that are irritating me. But this week I have vacation, time to catch up on things around the house and garden. Time to RECOVER.

I had a comment or two about deciding to run the half-marathon at the last minute this past Saturday. “Yeah, I guess I will run a half-marathon today.” No, I’m not some super-macho-type that lives on steroids or something. I am training for a marathon in May (though still undecided if I will do this one), running somewhere between 40-60 kilometers (25-37 miles) a week since mid-January, and with the exception of two weeks in January - running regularly since February 2004. So I guess I’m more an intermediate runner, though still slow as molasses in January.

I am happy that I can decide at such short notice whether to run 10K or a HM, last year I had to seriously train for the two HM that I ran. This year I’m running so much that it really is “just another run”, although this past Saturday I had the goal of breaking my personal record (PR) which I did.

This week is a recovery week, in the last two months I have run 2 HM and a 20K run. It is definitely time to slow down before I break something. That said, I still plan on continuing with my May marathon training. I will probably find out this weekend whether this is obtainable, I have a 28K (~17 mile) training run on the calendar. I also have a 30K (18.5 mile) and 32K (20 mile) run on the calendar for April. These long runs will be the deciding factors. I know at this point it is very possible that I will have to postpone until September if my legs can’t handle it.

I mentioned in my race report that I had problems with a pulled upper thigh muscle on the back of my right leg. Looking in my old health book from college this could be the “semitendinosus” or “semimembranosus” muscles. Can anyone translate these into human English?

I assume that I stretched, tore, or otherwise beat the heck out of these muscles on Saturday trying to be Mr. Macho and set a new PR. On one side I am happy to say that I did not feel any pain while running last night. On the other side the muscle is sore this morning so is not completely healed. I am trying to limit my walking today to give the leg a rest. We’ll see how it goes. Happy running!