Monday, October 20, 2008

broken...

It should have been a nice report about the nice 135km done in the week and a good final workout, but in reality this post is about my hip...
in short, I am injured at the hip: the muscle that runs above the hip until the knee (tensus lateralis or something similar) is strained and inflammated.
Yesterday the long run has been a nightmare: I started to feel pain and that caused an alteration of the stride until the leg "locked"... so I jogged home (10km...).
I am afraid it is quite severe because at the end in the past 10 days just went worse and worse.
Therefore I fear that my marathon is really in jeopardy and that is pretty depressing perspective.
Honestly, after 5 months of training under this scorching sun and breathless humidity, I would have deserved a bit more luck... just 15 days to go...
The physiotherapist this morning gave me a combination of remedies, but with only 15 days to go, sounds pretty desperate.
What to say more.... I got the worst "revenge" for those small mistakes done in the past months:
- not enough core stability excercises
- lack of sleep, with conseguent fatigue of postural muscles
- not enough streching...

6 comments:

Sling Runner said...

by7,

Can u give your email address? Two weeks ago I receive a newsletter from the organizer about race pack pick up and rules about the race.

I can forward you the email.

Hope the pain will go away soon !

Unknown said...

I saw you running with other runners to the Science Park's direction this Sunday when I ran back from Tai Po. You seemed a bit serious of your facial expression. Perhaps you were in pain. When you mentioned not enough stretching, you mean post-exercise stretching or a separate session of stretching? I had my pain mostly on my right ankle nearly every time started hitting the road. The muscle tightness usually went away after 5-6 km run and I am now wondering if it is shin splint.
Wish you prompt recovery and a hopeful heart.

by7 said...

Dovy,

thank you for the wishes.
Sunday I was running with really good companions and we were pacing well, but I felt more and more pain going from Shatin to TaiPo. My stride was really unnatural and felt awkard... I guess that my face was reflecting the feeling...
At the U-turn in TaiPo I could not stand the pain anymore and just jog back to Shatin (10km .. endless).
About stretching, it is always better to do it once you are warmed up. So do it either after 10/15 minutes of easy running or at the end of your easy running session.
Do not do stretching before races or as part of the warm-up because it is rather useless...
About your pain, obviously it is not easy and appropriate to make a diagnosis.
Remember that shin splints is a particular inflammation of the tissues in the front side of the leg, just where the bone meets the calf.
If not in that position, than it is more likely a tendinitis or some muscle strain.
I really recommend you to go and see a good physiotherapist with running experience. He/She can give you invaluable suggestion about how to improve your running (maybe you have some leg unbalance or some muscle weakness)

Anonymous said...

That's bad luck. But, trying to see the optimistic side, there is a point in marathon training when a rest is more valuable than an additional workout, and 2 weeks to the marathon is perhaps around that point.

There is still time to recover.

Perhaps the only thing you will miss is the psychological reinforcement of doing a couple of decent tune-up runs during the taper.

Hope it works out for you, it must be very frustrating.

by7 said...

Nick,

you are 100% right.
Actually my plan for the next 2 weeks was anyway to run 10km daily with 2/3 more serious workout. So at this point in time the training itself would not be affected.
But I am really frustrated because a) I am not sure to hold the distance without pain. I do not want to spend 3 days out in Korea to DNF after 10km...
b) after 5 months training, I had not yet a single opportunity to really test my pace... I have several signals that point to the 3'40" as feasible, but I never made a real test on this
c) the psycological components on the running form: I am afraid that for fear of pain, I will alter the stride and therefore create other troubles... I will have to be very relaxed once I resume running

Overall, maybe physically is not a big issue, but It is really a blow to my mental strenght

Unknown said...

I'm sorry for your accident....Could be for excessive training ? But I can't speak, I'm not a skilled....
I wish You a fast healing !
Ciao
Gianluca