the Way of the Turtle

RUNNING AGAIN (ALBEIT SLOWLY...)
5 Mile Run in the Albany Pine Bush
Friday, September 22, 2006

With the various broken and battered bits of me feeling gradually better over the past week or two, I decided it was finally time to try running again. After all, the Rochester Autumn Classic Duathlon is only a little over a week away...

Started out slow and stayed slow the whole time... probably about 15 minute miles on average. The first few miles weren't too bad... a bit uncomfortable, but the pain was manageable and MUCH improved over my Labor Day shuffle at Five Rivers.

Unfortunately, about halfway through the run my right leg started stiffening up and aching a bit. I'm guessing that the place where my hip smashed into the ground (which initially had a pretty substantial dent in the muscle and later had a huge bruise) suffered a good deal of damage and now I'm working against the scar tissue in the muscles. The last parts were not a whole lot of fun... a slow, somewhat painful shuffle. But I did finish the 5 miles "running" rather than walking.

So this leaves me a bit concerned for the long course on the duathlon... guess I'll have to play it by ear and if necessary drop down to the short course after the 2nd run. I would really like to complete the long course - feels like that would be a major accomplishment, given that I've spent much of the last 5 weeks on the partially-disable list.

The longer trail races I was hoping to do (Monroe Dunbar Brook, Ridgewalk & Run, and After the Leaves Have Fallen) will probably be out of the question... maybe After the Leaves is a possibility, if I make a LOT of progress over the next month. But right now it looks like I'll focus on duathlons and maybe a shorter race or two.

Oh, well.

JMH