Ok, so this is my second post in a row where I used swearing in the title, but at least I’m censoring it a bit this time. I’m finding it quite liberating. Also, it seems swearing gets more hits to the blog. Obviously, people like to read swear words, so I’m trying not to disappoint.
Anyway, I’ve taken a full week off from running since finally realizing the tendons in my hamstrings were royally screwed up. Thankfully, there’s been noticeable improvement everyday. Each morning is less tight than the day prior, and stepping up on curbs causes less pain as well. After a full week, I decided to test things out by doing almost 6 miles in central park. This consisted of the lower 5 mile loop with about .7 miles for the road at 60th and 5th ave leading to and from the loop. I never skip Harlem hills, but knowing this injury, I knew that I would be making things worse if I were to include them.
The whole time while running, I focused on trying not to aggravate my hamstrings. I maintained a small stride to do this. I was mostly successful and by the end of the run things were even better than I thought they’d be. The running wasn’t easy, and by that, I mean it was tiresome in my leg muscles. I can’t for the life of me figure out why that is. How could I possibly go from running 20 miles without effort to having tired legs after 3 miles? Do you lose so much fitness in a week from doing nothing? The answers to the obvious questions most would ask are.. I ran a full minute per mile slower that what I do 20 at, and, no, aerobically this was no problem as I was carrying on a full conversation.
The next day I can’t say I noticed an improvement like I have every other day, but it didn’t feel like i regressed either. So I went out for another 6 and it didn’t go well. In fact, it was worse than the day before. I remember thinking to myself while running how much I missed running. And, I mean that easy effortless feeling of moving fast along with feeling the kind of effort that’s welcomed… almost what’s craved. This felt broken, and it was not the result of pain from my injury. I wasn’t in pain. It was just this weird tiredness in my legs in muscles I never feel tiredness in. And in my lower back also in places I never felt tired before.
I have to admit, that during the week away, while things felt like they were improving quickly, I was still secretly hoping Boston could be a possibility. But, this second run absolutely killed it and in some way it was almost a relief. I guess the realization that this is absolutely out of my control took some pressure off, but it doesn’t change the fact I’m still pissed at the situation. This is true especially when I think back to the sacrifices I made to stay so consistent with training. Oh well, I whined about that in my last post so I’ll skip it here. But the point is, I’m now ready to cancel those hotel reservations 
The scary thing about all this, is that you think there might actually be a possibility this is one of those injuries that never fully goes away. The rational side of me believes mostly this isn’t true. But, when I think about how long I’ve felt that twinge, before it became a major problem, I realize can’t remember a time not feeling that twinge. That’s also sort of the reason how this whole thing was able to creep up on me the way I did. It was like I turned around one day and said, “Hey, this isn’t getting better.” But, my point is if it took this long to get so bad, is it going to take this long to go away?
Any way, in the meantime; something non-running related, I joined a CSA which I’m very happy about.
I think our food, and the whole industry around agriculture, along with the FDA and USDA is so broken it’s quite frightening when you think about the path we’re going down. I’ve never really written about this, and if I were, you would might think I was a conspiracy theorist if you aren’t already familiar with the situation. I’ll tell you right now, I’m no extremist by any means. But, I feel like there’s this big reality out there that the majority of America knows nothing about. There are so many “definitions” and “standards” put in place by these institutions we believe are there to protect us. In reality, these definitions are so ill-defined, vague, and deceptive. Often, people make decisions with the best of intentions because of these definitions. It turns out, those institutions which we believe we can trust have become so twisted and corrupt that not only are they useless, but they’re quite destructive.
I might write more about it in future posts, especially since there will probably not be much in the way of running. In the meantime, spend some time watching this. It’s a little tough to get through the first 10 minutes, but it’s very informative.
