5+6=11!

What a breakthrough week for me. 1 minute last Sunday. 11 minutes this Sunday. YES.

The first 5 minutes didn’t feel great. Residual pain (not sharp, like before) with most steps. I stretched for a while afterwards. Then decided to run for another minute or two to see how it felt after stretching. It actually felt pretty good! Still doesn’t rotate like the healthy one, but no real pain. YEAH! So I ran for 6 minutes. For a total of 11!

To make it a “day”, I then went out and did a 17 minute double pole and then a 30 minute bike. Nice to get an hour of workout in. I’m actually getting to be a pretty good biker (well — by that, I mean: able to get the HR up pretty high/work hard on the bike). I like it! One thing I will say about the injury: it’s totally made a competitor out of me. You should see me down on the bike. I’m biking with purpose, with passion! I’m not going to let this injury get in my way. 🙂

I have no real idea if what I’m doing is good/bad/etc. I hate that — I feel pretty alone. By that, I mean that I’m constantly thinking about it, but have no one to really tell me yes or no — change it/go harder/go home/etc. So I decided to email my college coach and Derek Lindstrom, who has worked with one of my Run N Fun teammates. What should I be doing? Should I just take a week off and nip it in the butt? Should I continue to try to stress it each day, doing a little more?

Dale (college coach) wrote me back this morning already. He said: 3-4 days off starting today. Then run 1 day, bike 2, run 1, bike 2. I can add biking after the run on the running days. Use the bike days to simulate what I would be doing on the roads (long/easy, then a tempo or interval workout). Even though I hate the idea of letting myself become more out of shape with more rest days, I’ll listen… I really trust what he has to say. Once I’m back on board, I’m going to try to use someone to help with my training plan. I know I need to change it, just not sure how. Plus I think I need a little more 1-1 coaching if I’m going to make the trials a true goal of mine.

So, that’s the plan.

We also talked about a fall marathon. He’s a fan of TCM (the other option is Mankato) becuase it’s really well run with more fast people in it. Mankato probably has a better course but won’t have the runners around me/support. So, TCM it is, I guess! I emailed in today to see if I can be considered for elite status. Fun!!!