Speaking of Hurt People...

I am hurt! Injured, that is. It's been a while (thankfully) that I've had to deal with a real injury, one that sidelines me. And it's extremely frustrating! I've been on a real running kick the last six months or so, and I guess that was my bane.

Actually, this injury started last March when I had the hair brained scheme to race again. That prompted me to buy a Kinetic trainer, and start spinning at home. I felt a tinge in my right quad soon after that. My normal running stride aggrivated the situation, but I found if I ran on my "tippy toes", it mitigated the pain.

That's how I happened on Newton running and minimalist running shoes, but that's for another post. Anyway, when I compensated the pain in my quad with more of a forefoot strike, I soon developed pain in my achillies, calves, and interior shins. Ugh... I wrapped my quad, and would vary my stride to accomodate all this nagging pain. Miracoulously, I came through it fine, and had a new found appreciation for different running style.

So with my new appreciation and no more pain, I kicked in my miles by running every day (six days a week). Three of those (M, W, F) were additional, and short, just two and a half or three miles. My T\Th runs are usually six miles or so, and then my weekend long run was in the low double digits. This lasted all of three weeks when my quad began aching like it did in March, and my shins majorly revolted. I figured with years of running behind me, I wasn't vulnerable to overuse injuries, and the "never add more than 10% in milage a week" rule didn't apply to me. I figured wrong.

I continued to plod along hoping it would just go away, and then last week as I was sitting down, I felt a pop in my quad. Game seriously over... for a while. Oddly enough, I can still bike fine, and am doing all of that while I can (i.e., while there's enough daylight to get out, and when my schedule allows). We did a great, hard 25 mile trail ride tonight. I just can't get psyched up about that trainer yet, though... yuck!