Last week ended up being a 90+ mile week that ended with the 3M Half Marathon Relay. 
I knew coming out of that week I would have an easier time this week because of travel for work to Berkeley, CA. At the finish of 3M I felt some tightness and think I’ve overworked my tibialis anterior muscle.
I ended up taking Monday and Tuesday off because of the travel and laziness. Then ran Wednesday and Thursday, Friday off to give my leg some rest and then 24 miles yesterday (Saturday). I knew going into it that the downhill might aggravate the issue and since I pushed the pace on the way back on the out and back course it did and I paid the price today.
Flexing my foot is when I feel discomfort, enough today to cut my run short. The soreness is on the muscle itself where I have developed some knots that need to get worked out. The issue is muscular luckily so I need to take care of it, rest, recover, strengthen and get back into regular training.
This is all part of the ups and downs of training, the intensity and duration were a little bit too much and I wasn’t diligent about non-running activities like stretching and gym work so something had to give. Now it’s adjusting and getting back into the groove.
There is something to be said about running and these bumps in the road. The process of training, seeing what your body is capable of and can handle, pushing yourself to do more is part of what I enjoy so much about running. It’s a since of feeling alive, it can be a good series of weeks training or the injury to work through … they all take physical and metal effort that I’ve come to appreciate.
So what’s next? Well I think I’ll take a few days off from running, maybe hit the elliptical at the gym or take some spinning classes. Get some more work done on the leg to loosen the muscle and knots, ice twice a day, do some strengthening exercises twice a day and then try and test the leg out later on in the week … there’s no real hurry since the race is just under 3 months away.
February 3, 2009 at 9:57 pm |
I’m glad you’re taking time to let it heal. Get better soon!
February 5, 2009 at 10:05 pm |
[...] has been what I’d call “good” but some of it has. Earlier this week I talked about how I hurt myself at 3M and then aggravated it this Saturday. So Saturday 800 mg of ibuprofen still left me with some pain … that was “bad [...]
February 8, 2009 at 1:23 pm |
[...] from injury can be a slow and meandering process I posted at the beginning of the month about the issues I’ve had with my Tibialis Anterior muscl…. This week came with some highs and lows on my recovery. One of the major issues I had were two to [...]