Thursday, January 20, 2011

Long Run...No, but ok.

Dawn with Venus
This morning I set out to do a final long run before Surf City in 2.5 weeks. Got up early and was out the door at about 6am.

Started out at a 10 minute pace for the first 6 miles or so and watched the sun come up (that's Venus..a.k.a. "the morning star", a tiny dot in the upper right corner).

Also got to watch the almost full moon set over the water which was rare to see. A few runners and bikers were out at this hour but not many.

Moonset
I was feeling pretty darn good running in my Nike Frees and figured I just might step up the pace a bit now. I was hoping to reach 20 miles (about 3 loops of this route). I did the next 3 miles at a 9:30 m/m or so and then started to feel my right calf cramping. This is the same place that has been dogging me since a run on vacation in Hawaii. I thought it was healed up but it seems not quite.

After stretching for a while and walking a  bit I was able to negotiate a peace treaty with my recalcitrant muscle and proceeded to do a slow 11-12 minute pace without more cramping. But discretion being the better part of valor (and the smarter way to avoid injury) I aborted the course and beelined for home.

I can tell my fitness is plenty good...it's not peaked but it's plenty good to run a marathon, so it's frustrating to be "hamstrung" from doing a long run by a piece of muscle the width of a pencil (which is about how big the cranky-crampy muscle feels). 

Obviously it needs more time to heal up..and there's no arguing with a muscle...they win. So we'll just have to do shorter and/or easier runs. It's a bit of a mystery why this happened..I'd been doing a lot of cross training and built up a lot of muscle on my quads, etc. Perhaps it's changing too many things at once? I'm really have no idea.

When we set out to test our fitness and have a setback, it's disappointing. But, on the other hand to see a beautiful dawn during an otherwise wonderful 10 mile run, I really can't complain. It's all good.

I'll wait a few days before I try a long run again.

5 comments:

  1. Ouch, sorry you're still dealing with that pesky injured muscle!

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  2. Sorry to hear about your injury. Grrrr!

    That's some beautiful photos you have taken there! Maybe I should start taking my camera out with me....

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  3. Sorry to hear it! Hopefully with some rest it will be kind to you and let you run well at Surf City.

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  4. @all: thanks for your wishes

    @Lynne: I always carry my phone..it has a camera.

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  5. Beautiful pic! Very wise to pull up early than to make an injury any bigger. Hope you recover in time for Surf City.

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