For Whom the Dogs Bark

32F and sunny, 3.07 miles in 35:16, 11:31 average pace, no heart monitor.

Still feeling out whether I am on the healing side of my groin pull.  Hard to tell.  At times the pain was sharp but focused, like a small needle, at other times it wasn't there at all.  Most encouraging, it stopped immediately when I finished.  But this thing is not settled.  My son is going to show me some stuff at his gym today.

My next door neighbor has her grandparent's visiting and they brought their lap dog, a fierce little thing that got out of the garage when I ran by.  I was very nice about the whole thing.  See, I can be nice to dogs.

Such a perfect morning and no work.  Would have been a good day to go long.

29F, ran slowly to the neighborhood rec center in the dark and went in, only to find all the ellipticals in use, at 5:20 in the morning.  There is never anybody in there when I run past the place.  I needed to start working on weights anyway, so I just started in.  I had to read the directions on the machines, but after awhile I noticed a pattern:  wipe off with towell, sit down, pick your weight, push or pull about 10 times, get up, wipe off with towell.  Finally an elliptical came free and I casually got on and made it go up and down. Had about a half mile on it before I glanced over at my neighbors' feet on both sides and noticed they were moving the opposide direction.  Sad to say, I was going backwards.  I got off, stretched, got back on and coolly changed directions.  Nobody said a thing, at least while I was there.  I fled into the darkness and ran back home.  My groin pull seemed less actute today while running, so maybe I'll leave them to their machines tomorrow.

29F, clear and cold.  Weather was perfect again, and I wasn't about to let another good running day go to waste.  Ran 5.08 in 58:33, average pace 11:43.

My groin pulled a little bit, especially at the first, but it subsided after a while and was replaced by a modest but noticeable hip pain on the same leg.  This is my new substitution theory of injury recovery.  Also, they all come back in a taper, in reverse order, according to my theory.  So never taper. 

Anyway, all the pain went away after 4 miles and I floated home.  If I feel good during the day today I'll probably do the same run a couple of more times before ramping up.

31F, clear and crisp.  Another great day in paradise.  Ran outside for 2.25, paying close attention to my injury.  It wasn't bad, but neither was it better than yesterday, so I pulled into the rec center and got back on the elliptical.  Now that Jasro has been kind enough to officially certify operating the thing backwards, I hopped right up and went after it.  There was a guy right next to me going forward, but I sold it hard and I think I got away with it.  Got 2.5 more miles that way, set on about level 3 of difficulty out of 8.  I accelerated through the whole thing and my legs were very tired afterward, but the elliptical motion does not affect my injury, so this is going to be a good backup if I can take the mental torture.  Even though I did the 2.5 backwards, I am adding it to my total for the day.  Runner math.

Then I did some weights and ran back home, another .25.  Garmin is on the fritz again, but I know what these distances are within a few hundredths.

51F, cloudy and windy.  I woke up at midnight with an epic cramp in my lower right calf, probably from doing too much backwards elliptical yesterday -- this must be my punishment for counting yesterday's backward miles as forward miles.  I made enough racket that my wife came running in.  As a veteran of childbirth she wasn't all that sympathetic.  But it kept me drifting in and out most of the night, and when I got up this morning I could barely walk.  So I dressed in street clothes, took my daughter and  her friends to school, ate a full breakfast and then cleaned out my in-box.  I kept walking around a bit at a time and it continued to improve, so I finally changed into my running clothes and went out.  No problem running, it only hurts when I walk.  The good thing about cramps is they go away, although I think once you get one in a muscle it makes you more susceptible to getting more in the same spot, kind of like a concussion.

Anyway, 5.08 miles in 56 minutes (Garmin is still recuperating), about a 10:55 pace.  Felt sluggish.  All the normal aches and pains are still there, but at least in my imagination they are improving, and by the end of the run I felt pretty good. 

My other daughter was complaining about aches and pains this morning.  Turns out she ran every day this week and I didn't know it.  She is probably a go for the Cowtown half marathon in a week.  I was considering dropping out because of my own aches and pains, but I can't do that if she is powering through like this.

52F, cloudy but dry.  Ran 9.09 miles in 1:31:22, average pace 10:03.  Pretty stiff and sore to start but gradually loosened up as I ran.  Every mile was faster than the last, starting at 11:22 and ending at a 9:09 pace for the last partial split.  It felt pretty good to run a little faster with no significant pain.  Went and cleaned the church afterward -- an hour and a half of bobbing and weaving behind a vacuum seemed to help.  So far so good, looks like I will be able to pick up the distances a little next week.

There is an ad on this entry page for a Nordstrom Rack grand opening in Houston.  I can't figure out how they know I am in Houston or how they ended up running a Houston-specific advertisement on this blog -- I'm sure Nordstrom Rack isn't opening a store in every city where FRB bloggers live.