A thin line

I am a true believer that the longer you've been training hard in a sport (lets say running or triathloning), the less chances that you are going to have a major injury (e.g., stress fracture), or any injury at all. This is likely a combination of getting wiser (hard a$$ runners tend to get stress fracture early on because they, we, want to run hard all the time, and even use running harder to get over a hard but not so good run) and physically tougher (I read somewhere, I think in Lore of running, about how it takes about 1 year of running for the muscles to get stronger, 2-3 for tendons, and 4-5 for bones).

So why am I thinking about this today?

I consider myself wiser at mind and tougher at body, at least as compared to my 2008 "nothing can break me, I am going to run fast every time cause the faster I run the faster I race" self. My 2 stress fractures were fairly traumatizing, and it took me a couple of years to go from running only 3 days, to 4, to 5 and now to 6. I went from megalomania to insecurity in a matter of 2 stress fractures.

Since then, I have been injury free and running double the mileage I peaked at for my first marathon. I am also swimming and biking a ton. I learnt about alternating hard and easy days, and I am religious about it for the most part. The "most part" is where the trouble is. I am getting pretty lax in this "most part". Take this weekend, 15 fairly hard miles (my unrealistic HM pace is really more my realistic 10K pace), 3 hours muscle endurance+speed skills bike followed by a 4 mile MP run, a mile swim, and 30 min strength. Then today 10 miles with 4 miles of speedwork, and 45 min bike. Do you see what I see? Three hard days in a row!

My butt hurt me during the run this morning. The pain radiated from the butt to the calf, and it stopped when I ran, but returned when I slowed down for recovery during intervals. The pain was more of an ache, and it is most likely overuse (dah!!!). I foamed it, iced it and stretched it and it is much better now. Still this is a reminder that I really, really need to have hard and easy days, and stop overloading the weekend, even though the weekend is where I have the most time. My body is tougher, but it is still a body, it can get injured. And my mind needs to stay wise and keep up the megalomania-insecurity balance that has kept me healthy for the past 2 years!