Basic Training, Week Two

Monday, 11/1/2021

Rest day.  I don't feel too bad after yesterday's 3 miles, which is positive.  On the downside, a cold front has swept into the area, which doesn't have me super excited for the next few mornings.  But then, when you start a running program the last week of October, what do you expect?

Tuesday, 11/2/2021

31 degrees this morning.  There's really nothing to psych you up for a run like scraping off your car, which I had to do for the first time since returning to Chicago in May.  The 1.5 miles was not the easiest but I got through it.

Wednesday, 11/3/2021

26 degrees this morning!  It actually wasn't too bad on the trail with no wind and the sun out (it was funny by the end of the run to see "frost shadows" on the grass - spots where the sun had melted the surrounding frost into dew, but the grass in the shadow of a tree was still frost-covered).  The run itself was probably worse than the temperature - not that it was so super terrible, but by the end my legs had pretty well had it for the day and I developed some sort of stitch in my lower back on the left side just for good measure.  Hoping this is a temporary thing.  The last time I tried to kick back into running shape after a period off, I feel like it started more smoothly than this - but on the other hand, that was 15 pandemic pounds ago, so there's that much more pressure on my legs with each step.  Hopefully I will lose a bit of weight doing this and the problem will resolve itself eventually, but it might be a little rough for a while longer here.  Quite looking forward to Friday and Saturday at the moment.  Tomorrow might be pretty unpleasant.

Thursday, 11/4/2021

I had mentally prepared myself for the possibility that at some point there might be an injury that would hamper the process, but I have to say I didn't expect it this soon or where it ended up being located on my body.  The "stitch" that I mentioned yesterday turned out to be some sort of oblique injury - I don't know if it's a strain or an actual tear (hopefully the former and hopefully a mild one), but I was in substantial pain by Wednesday night.  This morning it had backed off a little, which is hopefully positive as far as severity goes, but deep breaths still cause that tell-tale sharp pain.  I'm honestly not even sure how exactly this happened - oblique injuries are generally caused by some sort of twisting, but this seems to have just happened in the middle of a run.  At any rate, I'm obviously not running today and tomorrow is a rest day, so that's a start for recovery days.  If things aren't noticeably better by Saturday I'll probably see what the doctor has to say.  This should be a recoverable injury that doesn't completely derail my hopes, but I might be doing a lot of walking for a while.  Maybe if I can lose a few more pounds during the hiatus, the running won't be as tough when I get back to it...

Friday, 11/5/2021

Rest.  The pain in the oblique has been kind of coming and going, though at no point has it been as bad as it was on Wednesday afternoon (you can tell that I wrote the Wednesday entry not long after getting back from the run, since things became much worse later in the day).  I've added some shoulder soreness which I think is probably acutely from awkwardly reaching across my car to scrape the windshield - probably need to invest in a longer scraper.

Saturday, 11/6/2021

This was supposed to be a 30-minute walk, but after an unscheduled rest day on Thursday and the overall plan severely in doubt at the moment, I decided to try putting a bit of distance on my legs - walking only - and seeing how they held up.  The answer so far - although let's give it a day - is relatively well.  Better yet, the oblique has been nearly pain-free so far today (I'm writing this at 3:15 pm), which hopefully indicates some sort of spasm or minor pull and not a tear or anything really significant.  I'm definitely still going to baby it for a while - I read that oblique injuries can stop being painful well before they're fully healed and thus are easy to re-aggravate - but at least my overall quality of life is going to be better without wincing every time I have to make a substantial movement or intake of breath.

The question is, where do we go from here?  I definitely don't want to rush back to running and even when (if?) I shift back to it I'm going to want to take it pretty slow.  This isn't that big of a deal for the half marathon target, since the half marathon in question doesn't have a time limit and also because 13.1 miles, while a lot, feels like something I could complete even right now if I had to.  (Heck, I did more than a third of one today!)  The same cannot be said for a marathon, and certainly not within a 6.5-hour time limit.  The good news on that front is we're still more than nine months from the potential marathon.  As of right now, I'm thinking: take the rest of the calendar year as a walking period.  I'll try to keep putting distance on my legs but more gently, along with some other stretching and strengthening exercises, and then after the new year - hopefully with a few pounds lost in that time as well - see about starting to pepper some running back in as long as I can hold up to it.  If it keeps being an issue I can at least walk the half marathon and fall back on the fact that I did do a marathon once in my life.

Sunday, 11/7/2021

This was supposed to be a 3.5-mile run, but instead I did a pretty easy 3-mile walk.  After yesterday's distance, I still felt pretty tired at the end of the day, so that might tell you something about my current levels.  Next week is definitely going to be an adjustment from what is "supposed" to be the training plan, but we'll see if I can make this work.