If the saying about March is true, that it comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, then that pretty accurately describes the month of March for me. Concussion, hamstring pull, big bruised knee and what turned out not to be a UTI, but complications of PMS–very lion like…roarrrrr…uuuggg! My weekly mileage has looked roughly like this: 35, 25, 28, 73, 87. March is finally leaving like a lamb, or maybe more like a mountain goat. I jumped back into training and got just under 90 miles last week.
Monday started off easy with an hour in the woods.
Tuesday was back to some 10 minute intervals, and much to my happiness my hamstring was fine, uphill and downhill! YAY!
Wednesday was another easy hour, which of course I smacked my knee and irritated the fluid sac around my kneecap. Nice black and blue, I guess March had to throw one last punch. I cut an old compression sock that I don’t ever wear because the seems gave my toes blisters, and used it to compress my knee as I walked dogs the rest of the day. By Friday most of the swelling would be gone.
Thursday was back to intervals, 12 minutes this time. It was a pretty lack luster run, but I’m blaming it on my swollen knee, and the stress of having my WSER roommate drop out and shouldering the cost of the house. Which by the way means I might have a room to rent! 😉
Friday was a recovery run. This may not quite be training relevant, but it sort of is. I met with a new doctor to discuss my Lioness March. Afterwards I felt much better: keep doing vestibular PT, get some blood work, make an appointment to get an ultrasound of my uterus, and think about maybe getting a low dose IUD to help with all that. I like to have a plan of action, it makes me feel better about things. I don’t want to wait for things to happen to me, I want to happen to them…if you know what I mean.
After the doc visit I realized my schedule for Saturday was blank, so while at a photo event for Antarctica, I emailed my coach curious about what the next morning would bring. It was about 7pm when I got an email response that said “run 40 miles.” I re-read that sentence a few times in the dark at the back of the room, and started to sweat a bit. I thought maybe it was a mistype, but as I continued to read it confirmed the 40 miles by saying, ” I know you have a 50 mile race next weekend, and this may seem counter intuitive as a taper, but…” Fortunately we were right next to a grocery store, so at the conclusion of the presentation I hurried over to buy second dinner, and running snacks.
Saturday’s weather was perfect, cool in the morning, warming up to 60, and fortunately I have enough friends who are also training for 100 mile races that I easily got a group together to join me for half of my run. Thank goodness for training friends! The first 22 miles went by easily with company, for the last several I packed up my pack and ran out to trails as far away as I could find so I had no choice but to run back for the total distance. I miscalculated and ended up with 36 so I had to loop around again, which brought me to 39..though my banged up knee was starting to stiffen, so I reasoned that one less mile on that knee was probably a good idea. We ran a really casual effort, with lots of loops back to the parking lot to pick up and drop off people, I don’t pause my watch, so the time on my watch read 7:30, however, according to Strava actual moving time was 6:40 or so. Not bad.
Sunday morning I woke up at 6 and the bottoms of my feet were quite sore, so I decided to get back into bed. I slept and read until 9 am and then slowly rolled out. Nothing hurt too much, ankles were a bit stiff, but after stretching and moving around they loosened up and I got in 10 more with Lynx and Drew before an Easter feast.
I am so glad for this bounce back, I am optimistic that this March hiccup is behind me and I am looking forward to Bull Run Run 50 this coming weekend. Running 40 miles the weekend before a 50 may not be exactly the type of taper I would usually do, however, I do have to keep reminding myself BRR is really only a training run for WSER, and I need to run it as such…NO RACING! If I can survive a build of 30, 40, 50 mile weekends and can continue to train after it will give me confidence going forward.
Trail Wisp(erings) 