Tag: injured

Run!, Training

Week 15- Ouch

Fallon @ Slacker Runner

Upcoming Races:

  • Destination Races Santa Barbara 13.1- May 13
  • Rock N Roll San Diego 13.1-June 4

Ouch, ouch, ouch.  It hurts.  Cue panic.   I have a half in 2 weeks and Wine Country in 26 days.  Why?!?!

This week was tiring.  There wasn’t any real reason I can pinpoint it was just tiring.   I actually bought a few beers to help me relax a bit the last time I was at the store but to show how rarely I drink- when I went to have one I realized I didn’t have a bottle opener.   Well crap.  Who knew those multi purpose race medals would actually come in handy? 😛

After a good week of running last week I was looking forward to more of the same this week.   Ha!

Monday- Rest  I had planned on running after work but things ran a little later than I thought.  This is when the tiredness started.  I was also supposed to help my parents with their taxes so I decided there just wasn’t enough time.  I hate taxes.

Tuesday- Rest Hmmm, apparently this is the black hole day of the week.


Wednesday- 3.5 miles Where it all went to hell.  Ok, maybe that was a tad dramatic.   I headed to home town for what I thought was going to be a nice, easy 4-5 miler.  20 feet in I had a feeling it was going south.  My left knee hurt- like a sharp stabbing pain right under the knee cap.  Do I stop or is it going to work itself out if I run on? I ran on, slowly.   By mile 2ish, my knee was under control but now my left shin was throbbing.   My shin is always a hot point but never usually this bad.  What the hell! I had turned around before that point and was gimping my way back to my car.  Walking made my knee hurt but running aggravated my shin.  Both sucked.   Later that night I had shooting pains in my right leg… compensation maybe?

Thursday- Rest  My knee hurt at odd points throughout the day, I did the smart thing for once and just went home.   This was beginning to get irksome.

Friday- Rest  My knee felt 85% better but my shin was still twinge-y.  For only having hobbled my way through 3.5 miles during the week, I was stupid tired.  I took a nap on my lunch.


Saturday- 4 miles  I helped my mother move a bunch of rocks in the morning which may or may not have been the best idea.    I joked that I was just working on my squats and hip openers.    I headed out for a test run in the afternoon to see how things went.  One thing I changed was my shoes- Wednesday’s run was in the Sayonara’s and this was in the PureFlow’s.  I tried to keep things easy and walked anytime I felt any sort of twinge from my left leg.  All in all, it wasn’t a bad run at all.  If anything, my legs really wanted to run but I wouldn’t let them.


Sunday- 10 miles 2 less then my original planned long run but maybe more than I should have done.   A cool front and an incoming storm meant I could run in the afternoon again.  I helped my mother with more buckets of rocks and then got the run in before Easter dinner.   Can I count all the rock lifting as cross training this week?  I wasn’t sure how many miles I was going to get in but I figured I would give it a shot.     I ran the same route as last week and coming up on mile 4 I knew I had a choice- turn left and turn it into and 8 mile run with more hills or go straight across the bridge for a slighter flatter 10 miles.  I was feeling ok so I headed across the bridge.  Per usual, I picked up the pace running across the bridge and slowed it down after that.   The river path is super over grown right now so lately  I slow down, pause my music and keep an eye out for rattlesnakes.  😕    Coming back across the bridge my leg was starting to talk, not pain but not happy.  Ok, 8 miles would have been a better idea.    I slowed down and just kept moving forward.  I think I can, I think I can.  10 miles done.  Where’s my foam roller?

17.5 miles for the week.   Less then I wanted but more than I thought I would get considering how I felt on Wednesday.   I will be spending lots of time with my foam roller and stretching throughout the week to come.  Maybe this will be the kick in the pants to use the roller more consistently?   As for the pains, I think the knee may be a problem with my shoes.  If so, this is the quickest I’ve ever killed a pair of shoes- the Sayonara’s only have 174 miles on them.  I think I might know what triggered the shin so I am testing a theory this week.

Oh did I mention I tried to knock myself out on a tree branch?  😂😂

Last week had some shiny moments-  I made it to the movies to see Fate of the Furious.  Yeah it had it’s over the top moments but it was still awesome.

How was your week?

Happy Marathon Monday!!!!

Run!, Training

The SF Marathon Training Week 14

Fallon @ Slacker Runner

14.  14 down, only 4 more to go!

So yeah.  Week 14.   Ummmm, ouch? Week 13 was awesome- I mean, I ran 20 miles and kind of like it?  What could go wrong?  Ha Ha.

Monday- Rest.  I felt pretty good actually, my legs- shins included- felt fine all day.   Part of me wanted to run but I figured that would be silly or worse injury provoking, so I scheduled in 2 rest days.

Tuesday- Rest.   Once again my legs felt pretty good but I had a plan man, and I was sticking to it.  It made sense.    At least I thought it did.

Wednesday- Rest.  Hello freight train.  Body wise I felt ok, but I was suddenly exhausted.  I felt like I could sleep for days.   That said, I was still planning on running after work.    However my family texted and asked if I wanted to meet everyone for dinner.  I first said no- I needed to run.  They ended up convincing me.   So instead of running, I enjoyed too much food at dinner.


Thursday-6 miles.  Seriously I wish someone had filmed the first 3ish mile of this run.   I want to know if it looked as hilarious as it felt.    I had another half day at work so I was naively hopeful that I could get the weekends 10-12 miler in early.  I don’t have a route that length in work town so I headed home.   I walked my usual 5 minute warm up and then started running.  Or tried to.   My legs were not functioning as a team.  Nothing hurt but I could not level out.  I felt like one leg was going forward while the other was swinging to the side.  I felt like a newborn giraffe trying to walk. Mile 1 was 98% walking, mile 2 wasn’t much better.    The final 4 miles were all in the 12 minute range but I finally started to feel a little more normal by mile 6.  I knew I wasn’t doing any more than that though.    This run did put me over 100 miles for June though.

Friday- Rest.  I should have tried to run.   It would have been the smart thing to do.  But, yeah, I didn’t.


Saturday- 5 miles.   I wanted more but after working in the morning, running in the 80’s was kicking my ass.  When did I turn into such a baby?    Once again, I was running while limping.  Again nothing hurt, but my stride was all over the place.   Miles 4 and 5 felt better but were still so slow.   I hobbled/ ran until I hit 5 miles and called it.   My ankles and shins were pretty sore that night.  I iced and rolled.


Sunday- 10 miles.  I was aiming for 13 but knew I was also meeting Heather and Ashley the next day for a run.  I wasn’t sure my legs were up to 3 days in a row so I dropped my mileage back to 10.  I didn’t even think I was going to finish that.  Miles 1-3 were more awkward gait running.  It takes me 3-4 miles to warm up, so I just kept going.   Once again, I hauled ass across the bridge and saw a 9:37 split- oops.  My legs were not happy.  I met up with my mother a little before mile 7.   I ended up walking all of mile 7 with her.  While I do take walk breaks, I don’t think I would have walked a whole mile by myself at that point.   But I was tired of running weirdly.    I think it helped.    The last 3 miles felt the best out of everything- part of me wanted to keep running.  😛

I was sore, bordering on pain by the end of the day though.   I foam rolled, stretched and iced.  I also “recovered” while eating lots of popcorn watching Tarzan.  😛

There’s a reason I’ve been taking a day between each run and I just got stupid this week.   Now my ice pack is my best friend again.  Grrr.    This is not how I was hoping to be feeling 4 weeks out from San Francisco.  I choosing to stay positive and not freak out.   Think happy thoughts right?  Oh, did I mention I have a half marathon in 3 days?  On the beach.  #findtheshiny  I can do it.

How was your week?

How long does it take you to warm up?  I think I am realizing why all my short runs were rough all these years. I was warming up when I was stopping.  Oops.

Seen any movies lately?

Run!, Training

San Francisco Marathon Training Week 9

Fallon @ Slacker Runner

Holy crap, I’m halfway there!

I’ve yet to decide if that is reassuring or reason enough for a panic attack.  It could go either way, it just depends on the day.  😝

After week 8’s less than stellar showing I was really hoping for a better week.  What I got was a learning week.   And an injury scare.   Then I finished it all up with a tough 10K.


Monday- 5 miles. I love seeing easy miles on the plan.  However, I ran these too fast.  I was about a minute under pace for the run.  While it felt pretty good at the time, I wonder if this added to the issues that popped up later in the week.   I also ran these miles in my Pureflow’s.  I was thinking of wearing them for my race so I wanted put a few miles on them since I hadn’t worn them since the SLO half.   My toes still feel squished but other that I remembered why I loved those shoes.


Tuesday- 1.25 mile w/u, 6 x 800, 1.25 mile c/d.  Since I missed week 8’s speed workout due to a head cold, I decided to do it this week instead of jumping to the 1K repeats.    800’s are hard.   The 600’s a few weeks ago had felt pretty comfortable, these did not, these were hard.    I also had technical difficulties of the hilarious kind.   I’ve been using the workout feature on my Garmin; I create the workout online and push it to my watch so I don’t have to try and track the intervals on my own.  So I programmed in what I thought were 6 intervals of 800 with 400 meter recoveries.   I felt like my first 400 m recovery was taking forever.   I kept checking my watch but it kept saying 399.9.  What?  Come to realize that I had programmed my recovery at 400 MILES not meters.  Oops!!    So from then I just tried to ballpark when to hit the lap button to end each recovery.     I underestimated each time, oops.    My recoveries ended up being around .15.


My goal time for each 800 was 4:30-4:42.  Actual times were-  4:28, 4:23, 6:38, 4:26, 4:24, 4:23.  So yeah that 3rd 800?  I had tried to see if I could fix the 400 mile recovery but not only failed, I had also started the run interval but not realized it.   I think it would have been in the line with other ones though.

Wednesday- Rest  My legs were feeling super sore.   I wore compression socks to work and changed from boots to flats.  That might not have been the best idea.  I also had an appointment with my gastroenterologist and I have a shiny new elimination diet to start this week.   During marathon training…yay?      Also pizza night was a giant fail.  Boo.


Thursday- 8 easy miles— 3.75 miles  With a 10K race on Saturday, the plan was to swap my easy run and my tempo.   My training plan advised against this as I was supposed to step up to 8 tempo miles this week but I really like this race.   I still felt sore and tired so I headed to the river path to get in an easy 8.  Ha!   My legs hurt from the get go.   My shins hurt, my ankles hurt, my arches felt off and my knees started to ache.    I gave it 2 miles to see if it was all in my head and if I was going to be able to run it out.  No dice.  I called it at 2 and hobble ran/walked back to the car.   It hurt.   I went home and stretched, rolled and put on compression socks again.   And tried really hard not to freak out.  Thank you to Heather and Ashley for putting up with all of my whining text messages.  😂

Friday- Rest  My legs were still super sore.   I was beginning to question Saturday’s 10K.


Saturday- Bands on the Run 10K  Could have gone better but I made it through it.  More on that next post though.  Why do beach races make my calves so sore?

Sunday- 15 miles- Rest  My alarm was set for an early run but when it went off, I said no.  I had started to feel the beginning of a headache Saturday night and tried to fight it off by sleeping with an ice pack.  No luck, Sunday morning it was a full on migraine.  I shut off the alarm and slept more hoping it would ease up and I could get some miles run in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, all the afternoon saw was a 2 hour long nap.   My head hurt so bad, I didn’t even complete this post in time to go up on Monday.    Once again, I slept with an ice pack that night.

Hmmm, well 4 days is better than week 8 right?  Unfortunately my overall mileage still hovered in the low 20’s.  The leg pain kind of freaked me out and I am making an adjustment to my training plan going forward.  I am swapping my Monday easy run for Wednesday’s rest day.   I knew my training plan was intense for a Slacker like me, even with dropping Friday’s run from the get go.   So now let’s see how I feel with 3 days in a row instead of 4.  Cumulative fatigue is one thing, I am freaking tired.    Plus, who knows how these dietary changes are going to go over?  Fingers crossed!   Hopefully, my legs will get me through the week. 😀

How was your week?

How many days can you comfortably run a row?

Who else raced this weekend?