Now What?

ANOTHER injury! Yikes.

Thursday, Feb 21:

North St Paul Community Center indoor track today, chosen because the direction is clockwise on odd-numbered days. I wanted to give the injured adductor muscle the best possible chance (see Tuesday, below). Alas, five steps and I was done. It hurt, and any more running would clearly have made the adductor injury worse.

Apparently the injured muscle is not used much in normal walking, because that doesn’t hurt much, and I was even able to use the elliptical machine without pain. But it sure hurts when I run, for some reason. Even little bitty running steps hurt; I tried that. I also tried a resistance machine that I think is called the “torso twist,” with no problems going one direction, but when I switched directions YEOWCH that was the end of the torso twist for today.

I don’t know what’s next. Some time off, obviously, but how much? Until it doesn’t hurt to run I guess. Meanwhile the elliptical, stairs, weights, and most other upper-body resistance machines don’t hurt. Wonder if I’ll be able to run the Human Race.

Tuesday, Feb 19:

It seems like I’m complaining about something in every log entry these days. Today it’s a brand new injury to a muscle or tendon at the top of the inner thigh. One of the “adductor” muscles, I believe, or the gracilis, all of which are used to pull the leg inward toward the other leg. Conversely, for a runner rounding a corner, these muscles would pull the entire body toward the leg which is on the inside of the corner.

And I think that’s what happened. I ran almost four miles on a flat indoor track Sunday, all in one direction to spare the outboard knee. Then today I ran almost six more miles on a different flat indoor track in that same direction. That’s about 150 flat corners, and apparently that’s all it took to strain a muscle. Somewhere in the fifth mile it started to hurt, then it calmed down, and then with three laps to go it suddenly hurt too much to run. I finished the last half lap in a walk and stopped. It doesn’t seem like a major injury - just a very localized pain that should heal quickly. We’ll see.

The good news is that neither the achilles tendon nor the knee complained at all today. In fact, this was my longest run since January 16, over a month ago. That makes it a masterpiece, regardless of other problems. I am hoping that the adductor problem will resolve quickly and I can build back up to 20 mile runs.

The OTHER good news is we found (thanks to friend Jim) another place to run in the winter. For east-siders like us, the University of Wisconsin River Falls (UWRF) is not that far away, and allows community members (anyone) to use the indoor track for large parts of the day. Here is the schedule. Click on Knowles Calendar. Cost is $3.50 per person, and parking is $0.50/hour. You can get a one-semester or two-semester membership as well, in which case I believe that parking is free. Click here for membership information. My injury today was not the track’s fault; it’s a good track. Counter-clockwise on odd-numbered days, clockwise on even.

Monday's dinner: Organic chicken, organic brown rice with organic tomato, organic spinach with dried cranberries, organic carrots, onions.