It’s been an interesting exercise week for me. On my run last Sunday, on the first 1/2 mile acceleration of the workout I pulled my hamstring on my left leg…usual ‘pull’ thing…sudden sharp pain in the middle of the hamstring…ouch!
So I stopped and walked it home…it had become a dull pain…but no problem walking…so that was good…it took me a couple of days to _admit_ that I’d actually pulled it…just a bit of a strain…well, it’s that _sharp_ pain thing that’s the pull part.
I’m usually very sturdy…and have very few injuries over years…a bum knee yes…and a ‘pulled’ calf muscle a few years ago…cranky recovery before I could ‘trust’ it again…but I haven’t generally seen lots of little things hamper me like a lot of my Iron Buddies…so this really wasn’t expected…if anything I thought a calf issue may pop up again.
…I have been doing more short and fast workouts this season…but I’m over a month into doing that…and my mileage hasn’t shot up in the past couple of weeks…although there was the run test last Thursday, so maybe some residual weakness on top of other accumulated speed stuff…the fast downhill was the trigger though.
Where we live now is all hills all the time…I have been making mental notes of the hilliest of the sections, and been avoiding the fastest work on the steeper downhills…this was on a rather modest downhill, but still obviously led to too fast a speed for the muscles to handle, and they showed their displeasure…note to self:
stay away from _any_ downhills for fast speed workout intervals…always!
…whatever the exact cause, my hamstring decided to give me a warning shot…the ‘pull’ was 20 minutes into the run, after a proper warm-up, on a rather cold day. My Main Set workout for the day was scheduled to be 2 x 1/2 mile, and then 1 mile Z4 Hard, on 3 minutes rest…so not really horrible…half way through the first 1/2 mile it went out.Â
There are 3 levels of hamstring pulls in modern medical definitions…luckily, mine is the lowest level, and appears to be more of a warning shot than debilitating…no bruising, no follow-up pain…can fully extend my leg without pain…can pull up my foot against the bottom of a shelf with no pain…all good things.
Hamstring injuries can be very cranky…and continue to pop up once weakened…and if bad enough, have a _long_ rehab…I was therefore interested to see how workouts were going to go this week 🙂 …those darn stubborn age-group athlete’s
Light yoga on Monday to stretch things out a bit, and see what’s going on…did get one sharp tweak at one point…rats…by Tuesday no pain, but some stiffness in the hamstring…the real good news was that my bike workout on Tuesday wasn’t impacted at all…strong workout, no hamstring issues…so very good…and since I was warmed up, took a very light run off the bike for 25 minutes…no issues…so good…and a followup run on Wednesday…very light to light…I was going to be really irritated with myself if I came up lame again…but didn’t..and good solid bike ride on Thursday…so good…Friday rest day.
…rest, rehab, doctors, massage, are all options for a hamstring pull…so why run a few days after?…bit risky I knew, but I guess I needed to know how bad it really was by running on it, not from an ‘opinion’…just having moved into the area, I don’t yet have a doctor…went to a local ophthalmologist for an eye exam the other day that was long overdo, and when asked who my family doctor was, I said “I guess you are” 🙂
Soooo, planning to keep the running light to very light, until it feels back to normal…right now there’s still a bit of a stiff spot, although no pain, so feels like I can keep it lightly moving…and getting back to the yoga to get stretched out…yoga had fallen out of the mix…and probably lay off the swimming for another week anyway since the kicking brings the hamstring into play…okay okay…maybe a therapeutic swim…I do need to get back into the pool…and continue to hammer the bike workouts…and probably do some research to find a good local sports doctor and massage therapist…just to be ready.
Could be that Iron Dad is a bit rusted…_exactly_ what Iron Daughter has been counting on…stay tuned 🙂