I am coming clean in my attempt to make some changes in my life that will hopefully change my mojo. First confession – my Facebook picture was not really me, but rather somebody snagged off mullet.com. After attending my 25th high school reunion this weekend and having more than one or two people comment on my ‘new’ haircut (they thought the picture was actually me), I am caving in to my mother’s demands and changing my window to the world – my profile picture. Not being a very proficient facebooker it took me about 25 minutes to figure out how to do it, but for the time being it is RIP mullet-man…
I will miss my alter-ego…
I say I need some new mojo because I have woken up every morning for the past couple weeks to beautiful crisp and clear fall days, but until about 3-4 days ago could just not get out to run. I know big holes need to be filled in due to my extended blog absence, but since racing at Syracuse about 2 weeks ago I have been like a dusty can of corn – on the shelf. I’ve felt good enough the past couple days to start getting back out there, so hopefully things are about to turn around. Problem (as usual) is that I am entered in the Hershey Half Marathon this coming Sunday – to run the race and then go to injury “jail” without passing “go” would stink.
Cliff Notes version of my last 3 weeks – the good news following 5th Avenue was that my bum hamstring didn’t feel any different than my good one. The bad news was they were both super sore. Hamstrings, quads, calves – they were all barking after the mile effort. I took a couple of days off, a couple of days were spent in the pool, then an easy shuffle leading up to the Masters 5k Road Championship race in Syracuse, NY. When the gun went off I actually felt ok, and although my effort wasn’t what I had envisioned when I mapped out my plan in June/July, I think I ran as well as I could considering the lack of work going in. Crossed the line in a pretty evenly paced 16:06 – not the mother-of-all PR’s that I would have loved to have run, but not bad….
I ran the last couple miles of that race with a very tight calf though (spoiler alert..), so despite icing and wrapping it on the way home, it turned out to be my latest ailment. Ten days on the shelf, in the pool when I could but ellipticals and rest when working. Last Friday (after 12 days off) was my first run, and it actually went pretty well. I just got back from about 7 miles on a trail here in Chicago – very tight out of the chute but after things loosened up it turned out to be another step in the right direction. Today was the first day of a weeklong trip, so I plan to continue to ease back into things leading up to this weekend’s race. Am I in the kind of shape I need to be in to run what I had hoped to run? Probably not, but that isn’t the be all to end all. I am just worried about beating myself up and getting sidelined yet again just when I am starting to feel good for the first time in a while. I’ll wait until later on in the week to see how I am responding to the miles before deciding what to do. For now I’m just going to try to enjoy running again, build my legs back up, and savor the great weather.
I hope my mom is happy with my new image, and that mullet-man doesn’t take my abandonment personally. Karma better show me some love!
