Kitchen calamity

8:50 AM - 17 miles, 1:55:45 - Carrara's Trails.

Tour de trails with Ryan and Christy Mae. Perfect morning for some long running.

Nice run this morning in Hudson from the ever-evolving Casa de Carrara, gateway to the niftiest network of running trails east of 495. Given the fact that we all ran hard yesterday and have another up-tempo effort on tap for Tuesday, the three of us kept things pretty relaxed this morning and enjoyed the serenity of the Sudbury State Forest and Assabet River Wildlife Refuge.

I've managed to fall into a nice pattern of consistent training over the last five weeks with mileage totals of 69, 70, 76, 78 and 81, a steady increase well in line with Jogger World's never-to-be-broken 15% rule. Long runs have gradually made their way into the two-hour range, workouts have been - for the most part - spot on, and recovery days have been slow enough that those who religiously read the aforementioned magazine could probably keep up.

It's been frustrating though that the mild discomfort I've been feeling in my groin of late has refused to go away. The dull ache on the left side of my "kitchen" started manifesting itself about a week ago, and while it hasn't got much worse, it hasn't really improved either. There's no noticeable swelling or obvious signs of external damage but the internal strife that accompanies certain everyday movements has been too consistent to ignore for much longer. Other than a few instances of first-step stiffness in the suspect area, running hasn't been affected that much, although a similar sensation did resurface toward the end of today's longer effort, which has me slightly concerned. Walking around at work afterward was slightly less pleasant than the previous days and any attempts at lower ab work since last Monday have been a complete failure. Frustration is definitely setting in. My own early suspicions point toward either a groin strain or a sports hernia, but the symptoms are often indistinguishable, so self-diagnosis probably isn't going to help any. I'm gonna ride this out for a couple more days, re-evaluate, and go from there.

For now though, I'm gonna go watch TV and try not to move too suddenly. Hasta mañana hombres.

Quote of the Day

“I said to him, ‘Sorry, Paul, try next year.’”
- Haile Gebrselassie, talking to Paul Tergat after running 2:04:26 to break the Kenyan's world record in the marathon.