Dealing with Injury

As I mentioned earlier, I've been dealing with an injury. Airrosti has helped a TON, but I was maintaining my mileage as normal. It was incredible that I was able to do that with tendonitis in my right knee, but, after a great run with my Jason in Barton Creek (in Austin), I became convinced that I needed to hang back a bit and let things rest. In the end, rest is the best medicine.

So I continued Airrosti, even amped it up a bit, but scaled back the activity level, opting for the elliptical instead of real running, and hoped for the best. Fortunately, one week was all that was necessary.

By Friday of two weeks ago, I was barefooting 7 or 8 miles, really working on my form—short steps, 180 spm cadence, light on my feet.

The payoff?

On this Saturday, I ran a ~25 min PR on my 10 mile training run. BOOM! Then, on this Monday I ran it a few minutes faster. Then yesterday, faster still. Before I was injured I was running about a 11 min/mile for 10 miles. But yesterday, I averaged 8:19 min/mile with my final mile at 7:56—and plenty left in the tank.

The lesson? REST. REST. REST. REST. Rest whenever you are injured or feel an injury coming on. It pays huge dividends in the longrun (literally). This is even more amplified when you are training for an Ultra. The name of the game is to avoid injury. Do that, and you chances of success go through the roof. Plus, in my case, I want to run big miles on trails as long as my legs will turn over. For me, that means I *must* keep the big picture in mind, which almost always means that resting is the right move.