Thursday, May 1, 2014

the black route

yesterday i ran at lapham peak again for the first time since february.  now that the snow is gone runners can be back on the ski trails which is absolutely wonderful!  i brought my dog luda, he's 9, since he's always so bummed when i leave him behind.  i figured that since i've been injured i'm slow enough for him to keep up.  when we arrived at the park (at 7 in the morning) there was only one other car in the parking lot and i was stoked!  it's hard for me to run with him leashed because he's so close to the ground and i tend to pull on him too much so i like to run without leashing him.  besides that he tends to lag behind a few feet once he starts to fatigue so i like him to be able to run his own pace.  he's a great dog and listens well so i don't worry about him bothering others or chasing animals.  generally, when i see other people i call him and leash him until we've passed.  yesterday tho'... i didn't suspect we'd see anyone considering the time and the fact that there was only one car.

we took off and it was pretty wet from all the rain the previous days.  i decided right away to skip the lower meadow as that area tends to flood pretty significantly and it is almost impossible to run (or even walk) through it without having to go through huge puddles.  unfortunately this cut off almost a mile from the route but better that than fully soaked shoes.  so i cut out the lower meadow and we were on our way.

it was glorious!

it was about 38 degrees and overcast.  no wind but very humid.  everything felt good and i was going pretty slowly so as not to aggravate anything.  luda was keeping up well and we puttered along.  i walked all the hills mostly for luda's benefit as he pooped out about 3 miles in.  we saw some deer, a black squirrel, and several puddles we had to walk around.

i felt good at the end of the run.  no pain in my leg.  just pain in the stupid bunion i developed in my left foot but let's not talk about that.

however... last night a few hours before bed my left calf began to ache.  it wasn't painful but it didn't feel good.  i kept stretching it and was feeling a bit panicked but this morning it feels ok.  i woke at 3am to take some ibuprofen for the ache.  i'm really excited to have my insurance kick in so i can go back to my doctor and try and figure this out.  i'm glad that i'm no longer experiencing the pain and/or numbness when running (fingers crossed) but the fact that i'm still having other weird symptoms is causing me pause.  i don't want to over do the running and make it worse.  i planned to run 3 today but i'm thinking i should hold off given the ache from yesterday.  maybe 6 was too much too soon?  i have 7 planned for saturday and 6 planned for sunday.  i guess i'll run saturday and see how i feel for sunday.  sunday's run will be slower than i normally run as i'm running with a friend who's pace is slower than mine so that mileage for those two days might be fine.

i just get so frustrated with my progress being so slow.  in other news i felt so good yesterday after my run that i was inspired to sign up for the rollie 5K fun run.

... and that's all i've got to say about that.

1 comment:

mkerungirl said...

I think you're making great progress! It may seem like it's slow going right now but soon enough you'll be logging your usual mileage again. Great job and I'm excited to hear you signed up for a race :)