A Simple Plan... (and a Weekly Report)

So I'm kind of joining two posts here but the reason is simple: The weekly report is so short that I can't really call it a post. I ran only once this past week. Here's what happened.

My leg is still hurting. It happened during my first race. I just didn't notice. Because everything else was hurting as well, I just didn't notice. A couple of days later after all the usual pains subsided, I noticed the leg thing wasn't going away. I took the weekend off to give it some rest but this Tuesday, I laced up and boy did I pay for it.

Tuesday, September 4 - 4 miles
It was still bothering me but I thought I'd take it slow and see what happened. I limped almost the entire way. Of course, favoring my right leg led to, of course, my left leg to start hurting. I can only wonder how ridiculous I must have looked. People probably thought I was either running or doing Victor Cruz's touchdown salsa dance while I walked very quickly. There was no way I was going to keep that up the whole way and sure enough, by mile three I had to stop. That final mile was a real struggle but I barely made it. Not my finest hour.

It's ironic then, with my leg still hurting, that I will talk about my plan to improve the way I run my next race but since I'm not running I got time to write. Also, I will address what I'm going to do about it.

I'm heading to Philadelphia on business tomorrow so I'm taking advantage of it. Since I have been taking it easy and haven't run since Tuesday, I will have given myself a full week to shake whatever this is off. Plus, since I'm traveling and at a hotel, I will run on Tuesday at their fitness center on a treadmill, further reducing the stress you normally bear while on the road. If there is no progress and my leg is still hurting, then I'm heading for the Doctor as soon as I get off the plane home. If I see improvement, then I will run on the hotel treadmill again on Thursday. Yes, I have been avoiding going to the doctor but it worries me the Doc will tell me its something that won't let me run.

As for my plan, here's my plan:

1. Increase my mileage: Nothing over the top. I have been running three times a week, 3 miles, 3miles, 5 miles. So I'm going to shoot for 4 miles, 4 miles, 5 miles. The logic behind that is simply that I will be over-shooting the race distance every run. I want 3 miles to be an afterthought. The only way that is going to happen is by running longer distances. I don't want to over-do it so this is, I think is the best compromise.

2. Cross-Training: After the race, I was feeling particularly weak in my lower abdomen. It wasn't just muscular, it was that whole area kind of telling me "well if you plan on running this hard regularly you need to strengthen this general area you know." So, twice a week, I will do some strength training to work my core and upper body.

And that's it. Nothing extreme or crazy. Just a slight bump in mileage and some extra work to balance my workouts. Hopefully, it will help me improve my next race.