For the 2nd time in my life, I really have been contemplating giving up running competitively. In my last training stint, I was attempting to get in shape for Grandma’s marathon and decided to run a couple of 20 milers at a pretty decent effort. Unfortunately, shortly after these runs, I began feeling symptoms that were identical to the symptoms that I experienced during my first sacral stress fracture. I entered the Human Race 8k (St. Patty’s Day weekend) at the climax of the injury and I raced about ½ mile and then slowly transitioned into jogging Sunday long run pace over the next couple miles. I took almost a week off running and then I tried to back off running a little bit hoping my hip would feel better. Unfortunately, I had no such luck. At this point, quitting competitive running really began entering my mind. I just have not been able to put together any amount of sustained training over the last 2 years which has been a very frustrating process for me. I’ve now taken quite a bit of down time (I honestly am not sure how much). In my down time, I’ve picked up playing broomball which really exposed a lot of my muscle imbalances which were even worse than I thought. Most notably, I’ve experienced “tightness” in my groin for over 2 years now. I believe that tightness is slowly going away. Additionally, I now have been continually experiencing issues with my right hamstring. Both of these right leg issues have probably heavily contributed to my sacral fractures over the last two years. That pretty much takes to me today.
I started running again this past Thursday and have now run 5, 6, and 10 miles over the past 3 days. I am probably in the worst shape that I’ve been in over the past 4 years so it should be interesting to see how long it takes to regain my physical fitness. At this point, I have absolutely no plans for up and coming races. In college, I was always training to get ready for a race. Over the past 2 years, I have been doing the same thing. Right now, I’m planning on going back to what lead to me “breaking through” in the running scene (breaking through is of course relative). When I plan on entering a race, I really feel pressure to run fast so I’m not planning on entering any races until my training indicates that I’m ready to. I have absolutely no idea when this will be. I feel like a little bit of a toolbox joining the Run N Fun team and literally sucking for the past year. I would love to go out and start racing fast for the team, but in the end, being a little selfish right now will probably pay dividends in the end. I still plan on playing a fairly decent amount of broomball which may lead to some short term setbacks, but should provide a great alternative exercise to discover muscle imbalances and help resolve them as well. Because I am currently having hamstring issues, I am trying to avoid running with people until this is resolved. depending upon how my leg feels, you may see me out running anywhere between 5:50-7:30 pace so I’d just rather run myself and by feel at the moment. In the back of my mind, I’d like to run a marathon next spring or in the fall of 2013, but it’s more important to get back running healthy. I’m sure I’ll hop in a couple races this fall, but the magnitude of these races has yet to be determined. I suspect it will be a fairly low key fall for me, but time will tell.
