In my last post, I mentioned that I would be taking some time off to let my hamstring recover. Little I know that I would end up taking five weeks almost completely off, and that my hamstring would still feel tight and inflamed even after three weeks of not running. Needless to say, March was not a good month for me. I only ran a total 51.5 miles last month, my lowest total since 2005, and far less than the 300+ I was hoping for.
To be honest, though, February and March were very cold and grim, so there were many days where I was quite content to not have to run outside or slog along on the treadmill. Towards the end of March, that familiar itch crept up again, and I decided that I would try jogging a few miles to see how the hamstring reacted. It still wasn’t completely recovered by this time, but I figured if it wasn’t getting any better by taking time off, trying to jog wouldn’t make it any worse.
I ran a total of 9 miles the first week back, and the hamstring didn’t feel any worse, so I started to run every day, taking days off when I felt I needed them. The second week I logged 30 miles, and I ran 40 miles this past week. This is still only half of what I was doing before the injury, but it feels great to be back out there. The hamstring still bothers me when I sit down for too long (especially in the car) or after doing harder running (like strides), but it’s manageable and much better than it was.
Of course my plan to run some track 5000m races in April and break 16 minutes is shot all to hell, so what are my plans now? That is a good question. I think I should be in decent shape for the Lilac 10K on May 17th and the Buffalo Half Marathon the week after. I’m not expecting any PRs in either race, but if I can get run them hard and not be too embarrassed about my times, I’ll be happy. After that is Steve’s Run Down Cancer in June and then my favorite race in the world, the Utica Boilermaker 15K. After that, who knows? Maybe I will just run the Pete Glavin Cross Country series and hop in some road races too. Hope to see y’all out there this year!
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