However slight, the deep hamstring soreness has reappeared the last couple days, forcing me to take it easier than I was hoping to. That said, I’ve avoided wearing my compression shorts, as it’s not bad to the point like before, where they were almost necessary to move around while allowing it to heal. It just doesn’t hurt anywhere near that degree. I can still balance normally on the hurt leg, and while the pain has re-appeared it hasn’t gotten at all worse when I do feel it.
I had planned to attempt an Easy Interval run this morning, but got a late start on the morning and I decided not to rush myself. I’ll stick to work break runs and my evening workout today, and see how I feel about attempting the Intervals tomorrow.
So, time to come forward that I had planned to run a half marathon in Milwaukee on Labor Day weekend. Before my hamstring started hurting, this seemed like a good idea and measuring stick for where my marathon training was at.
Since the hamstring and groin issues reared themselves, this has become a more difficult proposition. I was hoping by this point to have been stretched out beyond 16 miles on my long runs, and that this would be a race pace session. Instead, I haven’t exceeded 12 miles in over a month, and I’m not totally sure I could run that distance in 13 days.
The lodging is already past the full refund point (that V1 date unfortunately came and went shortly after the hamstring issue emerged). I am at best able to recoup half the amount of the 2 night lodging stay (which wasn’t cheap, by the way). The race fee would obviously go down the toilet if I cancelled. I could get credit for most of the airfare. I’m not yet totally convinced I should cancel.
I could of course make the trip anyway and downgrade to the 10K or 5K the event is holding. Even that could be a tough task if I haven’t fully healed up by then, but I’d like to think I could fully go by that point.
You can’t reasonably catch up on lost training, and at this point I really only have about 4-5 days of beneficial training left for that half marathon. Any training beyond this weekend won’t generate fitness adaptions in time for the race.
Still, I have of course been cross training at easy/moderate intensity all this time. My average cross training workouts have lasted at least an hour. I’ve been strength training as well through this. I’ve gone over two straight hours on weekend aerobic sessions, including yesterday’s spin bike session that piggybacked off aborted treadmill/elliptical sessions. I still have quite a bit of (very easy) time on my feet during this past month from all sorts of walking and incidental running. It’s not like I’m trying to build from zero. I might be closer to half-marathon capable than one would think.
Plus, because I’m going to shut down all longer training after the weekend, I basically will have an easy week to recover before attempting this. What I can do is spend this week getting as close as I can to fit for a half with measured workouts, then spend the following week healing up as best I can while mixing in enough other training and activity to spur recovery and stay sharp.
I am willing to move forward with the trip and risk crashing and burning to see how well I can handle this and how much further I can progress in this short span of time.
Even then, regardless of the outcome, I would then take a full easy week of recovery following Labor Day weekend before resuming any marathon training. This is plenty of opportunity to see if Indy remains in reach or if I need to call it off, heal up fully, and move on (earlier than planned) to something else.
Today and tomorrow will provide a good look at where I’m at fitness-wise and with the left leg.