Hamstring Injury...Why?

The pulled left hamstring was the worst injury I've had since December 2005. What happened?

The first hamstring pain on April 17th was completely out of the blue. I'd been dealing with some little niggles from my left knee and right Achilles tendon, but up until that Sunday afternoon I hadn't felt anything unusual from a hamstring. And then, Bam, less than two miles into a relatively easy run I had a sharp pain that convinced me to walk home. After a week of rest I tried running the next Sunday, but again before I'd run two miles, the sharp pain returned to the back of my left leg. I was frustrated enough to push the pain and run most of the way home. That stupid decision clearly led to a two and a half week layoff. But what happened to start the hamstring problem the week before?

I'd been running 50 to 60 miles a week through February and March, but a refueling outage at the nuke plant cut back training time so I was down to the mid-40s for the three weeks before the hamstring problem appeared. I was working on speeding up the Tuesday morning tempo-run. The run on April 5th was within a half second of my fastest Tuesday tempo of 2011 from early in March. April 12th was much warmer but the Tuesday tempo was only a little slower. I'd also added some strides, usually on Wednesday morning. I don't normally run strides, but I hadn't been doing any interval training and I was hoping the faster turnover during the strides would help in the shorter Spring races. I was doing four strides, after running two to four miles. The strides were gradual buildups over about 100 meters (I was just using street lights), accelerating up to a sprint and holding that pace for about 20 to 30 meters. At the time, I thought it was a conservative approach.

I never had any leg problems during the strides, but in retrospect they seem to be the most likely initiator of the hamstring injury. Strides are pretty traditional training, but next time I think I'll add 800s or 400s before I start running fast strides.

Not a Good Absence

I haven't posted anything in a long time. My left hamstring flared up less than two miles into a Sunday long run in the middle of April. I took a full week off and again just before i'd run two miles, the left hamstring started hurting again. Instead of walking home, I ran most of the way. That was enough to aggravate the hamstring even more and it hurt even walking the next day. After another two weeks off, I think I'm finally past the hamstring problem. But the weather has turned to our normal oppressive heat and humidity.

The nuke plant changed it's internet policy. Among the many new restrictions on blogs and social media, I'm not allowed to post any pictures of the plant or coworkers, link to the plant's external website, or even mention the name of the plant or the operating company. There goes the nuke runner blog.

Some Inspiration

With all the problems in Japan, I needed something like this:



Here's the race with the original commentary:

Mud Bugs

Where I grew up, we could catch crayfish in the pond with a chicken bone on a string. Down here, the "mud bugs" literally live in the mud. Here are some crayfish chimneys along the running trail:






Here's a view of the water oaks along the trail:




Other than some nice vacation days running on the trail, it hasn't been a good week for nukes.


There's an "organic crawfish" farm on the road to the nuke plant:

A New Training Log

I filled the last entry in my training log Sunday. Inspired by KG and double-d here are thirteen years of running, dating back to November 23rd, 1998.

I wish I kept a log back in high school and college.

A Successor to Paula Radcliffe?

Paula Radcliffe has dominated woman's long distance running. Of the five fastest marathons, she's run four of them. Nobody is within three minutes of her PR.
But Mary Keitany might be her successor. She set a world record half marathon in the UAE and on the way set records in most of the standard race distances starting at 8K. 8K! Racing an 8K is very different from a half marathon, but she set world records at 8K, 10M, and 20K! Her half marathon time is 1:05:50.
It will be interesting to see what she does in London this year.

Mary Keitany finished third at NYC.

MEB, An American Champion

Too bad Ryan Hall is the only American male getting a big appearance fee to run the Boston Marathon and Meb is shut out.