Wednesday, April 30, 2014

April wrap, off to California!

After recovering from Gorge for a week, I planned on getting two solid weeks of running in before tapering for Miwok, which is this Saturday.

I ended up doing a seven-day period of 86 miles with almost 15,000' of gain. Some people eat that for breakfast, but I had a real scare with my left tibilias anterior tendon. After two 50km+ runs in four days, it was hurting quite a bit and I took two days off completely, before putting in some shorter road runs. I then took two more days off from running (but still did some cross training), massaged it quite aggressively and used a heat pack on it.

Massage really seems to work for me with my lower-leg tendons. By massage, I just mean pinching the hell out of them and hopefully working any inflammation out. I coupled that with a single dose of anti-inflammatory meds (naproxen sodium) and it worked. Within 24 hours it was back to normal and I've run consistently over the last eight days without even remembering it once hurt.

Whenever I talk with friends about niggles or injuries I tend to play the "rest and recover!" card a lot. What's funny is that it was hard for me to take my own advice, but I'm glad I did. A goal for me is to always show up at starting lines feeling healthy. That's especially true when I'm paying a lot of money to travel to an event and taking time off of work to do so.

I ended with a bit lower mileage and vert than I expected because of that, but I feel much better about joining the throngs (530 people!?) at Stinson Beach this Saturday and especially am looking forward to running with Adam and Dave.

April: 168.8 miles, 18,555' gain


5 comments:

  1. Good luck this weekend, Luke!

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  2. Again: Disappointed to not see myself in the top 3 at Sun Mountain. I guess I just have to make sure you don't win the shoes.

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  3. Just catching up on this now Luke! Glad to see Miwok went well. I also do a lot of manual therapy on myself by jamming thumbs into trigger points. I find the thumb treatment works really well on my tibilias anterior -- usually do it when im sitting down at work or watching tv -- seems to help.

    Also, I saw you won the 7hills prediction contest for Yakima haha! I thought I was going to win because I'd literally be the only person voting for myself for 2nd!

    -connor

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    1. Thanks Connor. I try and roll a lot too, so it isn't too often that I get something as bad as that was. I blame running down The Cut in the snow (unstable and had to work a lot more), followed by running down St. G, then running down Skyline three days later. Steep downhills seem to do it for my "tib ant". Yes, next time you're going to kick ass, will you please tell me first so I can get it right!? I had all other five finishers correct, only you messed up my perfect score :P .

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