Good Pain at Last

I don't pretend that my injury management attempt over the last month has been anything more sophisticated than "let's not run and see if it gets better" but with only one week till a hard, hilly race at Puffing Billy I thought it best to at least go for a run of reasonable length to see how my body is coming along.

To say it has been frustrating and even getting me down a little is not the half of it. But it is the kind of nefarious (definition here!) injury that I know from experience is almost impossible to accurately track down the case of and treat. In fact, the only similar thing I can recall is something which ailed me about a decade ago and which made running and cycling all but impossible. Which is to say it is lower back pain leading to an inability to stride properly (or at all when it is bad). Aargh! To bad - I am going to run anyway.

So run I did. All 15km's of it at Princes Park for the Sri Chinmoy event last Sunday. Which was a good idea and a bad one all at the same time.

Getting a high five from Brooke

It was a good idea as it gave me some confidence that perhaps I could run without being hobbled by injury. It wasn't 100% but certainly after the first couple of k's it didn't seem to be a big deal. Importantly, I was not suffering the symptoms I have previously either during the run or after it - so very happy with that. Maybe my back struck a deal with my legs that only one of them would hurt at any one time because just as I was thinking how good it was to be pain-free(ish) my legs really started to feel the strain of not running for four weeks.

The 15k course is three 5k laps - the same course that I covered back in July for 30k. This time round my objective (hope?) was to run around 5min/km at a steady pace for the whole race. And so whilst it got a "bit hard" in the second half as my lack of condition begun to tell I was pretty happy to run laps in 25.27/25.45/25.34 for a total of 1:16.46hrs.

A couple of days later and my quads are sore and hammys tight but there is no hint of the injury I have been suffering nor are my calves sore (another weak point for me). I expect to come right later in the week and hope to run once more before the Great Train Race on Sunday.

At last, good pain!