Hello from Shorewood. I am not racing today.
I woke up around 6:30am CDT with the same proximal hamstring pain that’s greeted me every morning for the last 3-4 days (though it’s mostly passed, as it has each of those days).
I also realized I hoped to wake up earlier, as it may have taken me up to an hour to walk/jog to the start line of the Half Marathon I planned to run, and at this point I’d be cutting it fairly close.
I also slept incredibly well, and Garmin says my body battery and RHR are better than they’ve been in weeks. I didn’t want to waste that on a 3 hour ordeal that would at best leave me totally worn out before 11am and needing a full week to recover.
I also found out where I am in Shorewood is in a really nice part of town with a lot of scenery and cafes. I’m also, if I still feel like running today, right near a high school track that’s open to the public. And I haven’t been on a track since leaving Chicago, because Vegas high schools keep all their tracks locked up and the only two accessible tracks are fairly far from home and difficult to get to (plus obviously it’s really hot).
So there’s a lot I would like to do today instead, and there was little upside to moving forward and running the Half. I decided to DNS and move on. The vacation in Shorewood’s actually turning out a lot better than I had expected, and so I’d like to spend some quality time in the area before flying out tomorrow.
If I did a light track workout today (maybe tomorrow morning? I’m flying out in the afternoon), I’d handle that a lot better than grinding out 13-16 miles.
This also means I can jump back into training more quickly than I planned to… though again, I woke up with pain (part of why I decided not to race today) and a few easy days anyway would help with getting that to heal up. Still, I’ll take that situation instead of an assured week off following severe aggravation.
Enjoying Shorewood today, then back to the Vegas oven tomorrow. More to come.
