The Chances

How a 250+ Pound Couch Potato Got Healthy

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Long Run - 12 Miles

I was supposed to do a 12-mile long run yesterday. As everyone well knows by now, sometimes things don't go the way we plan. The alarm went off, and as usual, I put off getting up. I got up out of bed, only to have my right leg collapse. There wasn't any pain, but my right leg was weak. After taking a few steps it wasn't near as bad, but still weak, so I decided to take the day off and do my long run today instead.

Today, I woke up feeling fabulous. The temperature, while 34 degrees, was livable, and it was supposed to be 70 degrees later in the day. I ate my oatmeal breakfast, and off I went.

My goal pace was pretty easy, 9:22 - 9:37. Not only did I feel great during the run, but I finished strong. Much stronger than I expected.



Mile 1: 9:20.84
Mile 2: 9:32.98
Mile 3: 9:34.92
Mile 4: 9:43.12
Mile 5: 9:57.73
Mile 6: 9:33.48
Mile 7: 10:39.46
Mile 8: 9:14.51
Mile 9: 9:17.21
Mile 10: 9:22.58
Mile 11: 9:26.22
Mile 12: 9:03.88

12 miles, 1:54:46, 9:35/mi average pace, 1312 calories burned

Given how I felt yesterday, I wasn't expecting to exactly feel peachy afterwards. During the run, everything felt fine, but afterwards my leg felt about the same it did yesterday morning. It's felt like that the whole day.

It actually feels like an extension of a recurring problem I've had for many months. On my right leg, there's a spot that sometimes feels like someone's poked it really hard with their finger. It only hurts when I'm not running, in fact most of the time it doesn't hurt at all. It's on my lower-right leg, around halfway up on the inner side. About 4 months ago I went to the doctor and had it x-rayed, but they didn't find anything. The doctor told me things like, it couldn't be a stress fracture because I wasn't in enough pain, and couldn't be shin splits, because those are only on the outside (that didn't seem right to me).

I was on Twitter tonight, asking some people I knew who had similar injuries in the past, and they all seem to be saying the same thing: get another opinion, and possibly an MRI.

My next scheduled run isn't until Tuesday. I'm going to see how I feel after the gym tomorrow.

1 comment:

Pat said...

glad you got your run in. hope the leg issues goes away.