Grin and Bear It

I'm in pain today.  I had another session on the massage table this morning and I'm suffering the consequences.  Let me back up a bit and fill you in on the last few days.

On Monday I was high on the successful 10 mile run from Sunday.  I wrote about how I was practically healed; all was well and wasn't I lucky?!  It turns out it's not quite that simple.  Tuesday night saw me at the track for the usual workout with our coaches.  We were doing a step down workout, where we ran at half marathon pace or 75% effort for 7 minutes, then jogged to recover for 3.5 minutes; 6 minutes fast followed by 3 minutes to recover; 5 minutes fast followed by 2.5 minutes to recover and so on. 

I was aware that I didn't want to start out too fast.  Most people seem to have a tendency to get started too fast and then have to reel themselves in because they can't maintain the pace.  I was trying to run at a pace I thought I could maintain for 7 minutes and not want to throw up after.  So far so good.  I jogged calmly for recovery and got started again at the faster pace for 6 minutes.  That was when the right knee started to complain.  It wasn't too bad at first.  Just a tweak here and there.  It was pretty cold and I still wasn't really sweating yet so I pulled back the pace a little and thought I'd just wait until I warmed up fully.  I came around the track and found myself running at the same pace with a TNT captain so I stayed with him and chatted a bit about daily life.  When the recover period came around I walked instead of jogging.  3 minutes later we were supposed to kick up the pace again and when I did I just knew that my knee wasn't happy. My right knee was whispering it's objections and though I ran another lap, I eventually gave up trying to ignore it. After all my pride at being smart about my injury last week I couldn't be stupid now.  I pulled off the track to the coaches at the side and they shared knowing looks as their eyes said, "We knew you couldn't be fully recovered yet."

This morning I returned to the massage table and it was the most painful session yet.  Jon worked on the fascia around my right knee, on my IT band, quad, calf and glute. I could have sworn that he hid a knife somewhere in his hands when he was working on my calf.  The pain was searing and it felt like he was slicing through the muscles.  It took every controlled breath I had to keep from crying out in pain or jumping off the table. I left, as before, with a bag of ice in hand and instructions to ice and foam roll for the next week.  I'll see him again the Thursday before the race. Now I'm hobbling around the office trying to smile through the discomfort.  The marathon is just 10 days away and I'm running a little short on inspiration today.