Monday, January 26, 2009

Back at it.

Before all of these leg issues came up, I had agreed to lead out Monday night long easy runs. Knowing that I had agreed to this, I decided to take the weekend really easy on my legs and stretch all I could with the hope that whatever problems I have had will be gone by then. 

One muscle I noticed this week to be very tight through stretching was my left quads (Coincidence that my left knee was hurting?). How did I discover this? In doing quad stretches

(Sweet Photo)
I noticed that my left foot wasn't going any closer than 6 inches from my bottom. Hypothesizing that this may be the route of my leg problem I began furiously warming up and stretching my left leg. 

Sure enough, coming to tonight's easy run, I managed to make it through the full 40 minute 7.3 km run without any pain. I noticed once or twice a slight twinge but never anything more (and I was hyper paranoid so this is good). 

Now I just need to decided how I feel as to whether I decide to run the 5k time trial on Wednesday, I guess time will only tell. 

Note: In that photo, that is poor stretching, ideally you should have a straight line going through your body down to your knee, without arching your back. Here her knee is forward of her hips, this will cause less efficient stretch, you'll feel as though since you've brought your leg all the way in that your getting full stretch potential, but when you push your knee back, you will notice that your hip flexer gets activated in the stretch as well resulting in much better stretch.

And yup, I'm procrastinating writing my grant proposal, you'll probably see a few more updates this week before Thursday is done!

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