Week in review March 11-17: Stressful and a pain in the hamstring

With the soon-to-be demise of Daily Mile, I'm getting used to Garmin Connect's charts.

It was a weird week and I’m not happy with how it ended, because I might be on the injured list once again.

I had the day off work Monday, but we had gotten in from vacation late the night before and needed the day to sleep in, grocery shop, food prep, and catch up on laundry. I got a nice trainer ride in Tuesday after work, but had to pick up one of my dogs from the doggie dental surgeon (yes, there is such a thing; no, this is not her first time getting dental work; no, it is not cheap) on Wednesday so that day became a wash taking extra care of her. So there was already a bit of stress going into the week.

I have been having some mild hamstring pain for a few months now. The first time I could find a mention of it in my logs is when I did a virtual 5K just before Christmastime – it came on as a bit of a twinge, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t shrug off as a bit of tightness. It came and went, so I didn’t think it was THAT big of a deal. Unfortunately, it hasn’t gone away for longer than a few runs at a time. It bothered me on both my Argentina runs and was so bad on Thursday that I had to cut my run short. So, on Friday I bit the bullet and scheduled an appointment with my orthopedist.

I’m ticked that I have an orthopedist in the first place. This getting old business is crap. But since the hamstring is the same side as my injured knee, and as my out-of-whack SI joint a few years ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be an alignment or weakness/compensation issue of some kind. I would really love to rule out a tear and be told that I need to add hamstring-building exercises to my PT routine. That I can handle. Whatever happens at my appointment, I expect that I will be making another appointment with a run coach or sports clinic to re-build my running form from the ground up. I’ve always had pretty terrible running form (I’m an adult-onset runner so I never really learned the correct way) and this cannot be helping.

I’m pretty frustrated because I was hopeful I could pull off a spring half-marathon with the successfully increasing mileage I’ve been doing. Maybe it’s nothing and I just need an extra few days off. I’m frustrated because this is yet another setback, and right when the weather is starting to get better, too. Grrrr!

After that disappointment on Thursday I actually rallied after work Friday for a hard bike trainer workout when I really wanted to take a nap, so I was pretty proud of myself for that. I’m going to hold off on running for now so I dusted off my boxing bag for a warmup Saturday before some weights, and a long, easy spin on Sunday. I also did PT all three of those days, so at least the weekend ended on a good note.

By the numbers, it was:

Bike: Three times, all on the trainer, for 51.5 fake trainer miles in about 3 hours, 49 minutes. This was a really good trainer week for me.

PT: Three times, all homework exercises, for about 2:45.

Weights: Once, my heavy/body weight routine, for about 1:15. I was pretty proud of myself again that I could do more than one pullup or chinup, since it’s been a while.

Run: Just the one aborted easy run/walk on the treadmill, for 3 miles in about 39 minutes.

Other: 20 minutes of boxing as a warmup for my weights workout. I used to go to cardio kickbox all the time, so I just did some combinations I remembered from back in the day until I felt good and warmed up.

Total: Nine sessions in about 8:48. Not terrible, considering the week, and considering the two days off.

I’m going to try to focus on what I can do without pain for the time being, instead of whining about not running. I got some good trainer rides in last week and I want to try to hit the pool today. And hopefully I’ll have some answers soon.

Here's a pic of my not-so-ferocious pit bull with three fewer teeth, wearing a pink sweater: