Salvaged

Friday night, I was ready for this morning’s long run after prepping my gear: Two hand bottles filled with Heed, 4 power bar C2 max plain energy gels, bottle of ensure, one banana, 5 hour energy caffeine shot, baggie of endurolytes, ibuprofen, some cash, bodyglide, vaseline, tights, long sleeve compression top, techwick top, skull cap, gloves, smart wools, kayanos and a bottle of endurox for post run.

This morning I woke at 5:00 AM and completed the routine of getting dressed and out the door without waking the family. I met up with Mark at 6:00 at the Rail Trail. The plan was to put in a 4 hour run. Off we went, noting that it was freakin’ cold. Will it ever be warm again? About two steps into the run my hip was hurting like hell. Suffering is routine for both of us and pretty much a common experience, so we just took it a little easier at the start and I looked forward to my hip warming up and the pain easing. But the pain got more intense instead of subsiding like it usually does. Wtf? Either I was in wuss mode or my body was sending me a signal that this was not a day to run. I walked a bit, stretched a little, whined, jogged, shuffled, and tried to ignore the pain. But something was telling me that trying to continue in this state was not going to be productive. I wondered what Mark would do in this situation. He would have looked down and noted that his leg was still attached and determined that was good enough to continue on. Ok using Mark’s logic would not suit me. I’ve never read stories of quitting in Olga’s blog so I needed to tough it out, right? But today was not my day. So I packed it in and turned back, only getting in an hour (~5 to 6 miles). Mark ran back to the cars with me, picked up his mp3 player and headed back out for a few more hours.

As I drove home, I was bummed about my hip pain and also about not taking advantage of a nice guilt free window of time (Shannon was taking the kids up to a friend’s house for a 9 AM to Noon play date.) So I figured I should at least get a workout in by heading to the gym for a swim. LA Fit doesn’t open until 8 on the weekends, plus I needed my gym gear so I headed back home just as the kids were waking up. I got them up and to the breakfast table, rounded up my stuff and headed out to the gym.

At the pool I swam for 40 min (1 ¼ miles). After that I sat in the whirlpool for a few minutes and stretched. I then saw in the locker room the 9:15 AM spin class instructor who told me there were still some open bikes in his class. It’s usually filled up and also requires waiting in line for 20 minutes to sign up, so it was a pleasant surprise to be able to jump in last minute. I got in a nice hour of spinning to complete the triathlon workout. So I was happy to salvage some exercising today after starting out with an injury riddled run!

Monday I have an appointment with Dr. Veltri. He’s a Sports Medicine Orthopedic specialist. Hopefully he can get me back on track with my hip.