Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Where's Paul?

No posting for a while...still dealing with leftover cough and congestion from the cold. When I get a post cold cough sometimes  it's such a pain, takes weeks to totally get back to normal.

But worse than that...just before the cold I seemed to have torn a muscle in my left calf due to too aggressive stretching (!)

I have a stretching regimen....a little bit out the door, then run .3 miles, then a full set of stretches at my favorite spot. When I was doing the 'out the door' cold stretching of my left calf, I pulled back a bit too much on my left foot and felt a sharp pain, not super bad, but not normal. Near the end of the run, I could feel the spot getting more sore.

Then i got the cold, so at first I didn't pay much attention to it, since I was feeling pretty sick, I assumed it was nothing and would get go away quickly, but as I got better I found that running was not normal...after a few miles I felt soreness that built up in the same place.

Rule of thumb; if pain gets worse during running, then stop. So I did, and have. 

Little setbacks like this are humbling...reminds us how important health is...little things like the common cold can reduce us to weaklings. We work hard to peak and speed up by a small amount when racing, but when we're sick we are unable to do anything. A tiny tear and we're reduced to waiting.

It reminds me that someday I won't be able to run marathons at all, at that I should really savor it while I can. I like the saying on frayed lace's blog:

"Someday I won't be able to do this....today is NOT that day."

Except of course right now it is that day 8-/  

Anyway, ok,  no moping,  I'm hoping that I'll heal up by 10/17 (Long Beach)....my plan is to try a long run (13+) on 10/13 and see if there is any developing soreness...if not I'm good to go. 

At this point I just want to run this race and have fun...I have blown off pacing goals.....I can always to peak again for Surf City in February. I've lost a lot of conditioning due to this downtime but I'm pretty sure I can knock out a <4:30 marathon with no problems even my current state. 

Wish me (i.e. my calf) luck!






5 comments:

  1. Hope your are 100% come 10/17, Paul! Run safely and good luck in Long Beach.

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  2. Good Luck - please describe your stretching a bit more!

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  3. I've seen a lot of people have colds right now, and I just thought to get back and post a question for you. Do you have a ginseng-product called "Cold FX" in the states? I know they're trying to sell it internationally, but last time I went into WalGreen's and CVS they looked at me like I was a dumb foreigner (which was pretty accurate I must admit).

    Lot's of athletes in Canada that are controlled for banned substances end up using it because it seems to help with the symptoms and it doesn't contain anything on the poo-poo list.

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  4. Wow - sending you healing vibes. I also have a sore calf muscle from my long run today - and I'm trying hard to stretch and work it out without over doing it.

    Good luck!

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  5. Thanks for all your kind wishes folks.

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