Yesterday's additional rest day was needed and did some good. Ran barefoot today on the soccer fields at a nice, slow pace. Legs still felt tired, but not as dilapidated.
One thing that's curious is the IT Band. It's been tight for a over a year on the left side, but it has never really been much of an issue. There were times, especially around a year ago, that I couldn't cross my left leg when sitting because it was so tight. But it never hurt, and I rarely felt it when running and when I did it was seriously nothing. Therefore, I never mentioned it.
What is curious now is that it doesn't feel that tight. Unlike back then, I can cross my legs fine. However, while I'm running it has a sprained kind of feeling on that outer left part of the left knee, the same region as the IT Band. It's a bit bothersome, but it's odd because it's not really tight... I know what that feels like... but it feels sprained. Maybe it is sprained?
No doubt all of the above is the result of approaching the trail end of a pretty demanding race season. It's been a season of what I've dubbed as "chain racing", where you run a marathon or ultra, more or less recover enough, then race again. For me, that's translated to running a race followed by spending a handful of weeks recovering, then if I'm lucky I would get in a few weeks of real training before it's time to spend another handful of weeks tapering. Repeat.
Being more specific, I ran the Boston Marathon in April. Six weeks later I ran the Pineland Farms 50-miler at the end of May. Nine weeks later I ran the Brookvale 50k at the end of July and now I have the MDI Marathon on tap in mid-October, yielding a 12-week gap.
Despite increasing amounts of time between each race, I've been feeling a bit more beat up and run down after each one. Overall, though, the training has still been going pretty well... that is up until now. I definitely overdid it last week, tackling a big week when I wasn't ready. Lesson learned (or more accurately, relearned). Hopefully it's just a hiccup, but definitely warrants care and monitoring.
Big XC meet tomorrow, so not sure if I'll be able to run. If I can't, that's not a bad thing, but if can, it'll be something short and light like how today was. Hopefully I'll be okay for something a bit longer on Sunday.
Ran 4.2 miles @ 9:14/mile pace.
Grassy fields.
Flat.
Upper 60s, partly cloudy.
Barefoot, shorts, short sleeved shirt, cap.
1 comment:
You have put in some strong miles, and solid training. I think it'll be good for all of us to take it a bit easy in the fall, and cruise through the winter.
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