Small victories

Week #1 of the new Summer season is officially underway! I always have butterflies whenever a new season starts, but there seem to be even more of them this time around than before. Thanks to the numerous injuries (ankle tendonitis, hip flexor strain, hip pain, and last but not least, knee pain) I've been nursing for the last 3 or 4 months, I find I'm way more tentative than I usually am. Worse, not only am I tentative, but I'm SLOW.

Well, not slow in an absolute sense, but definitely in a relative sense. During Winter season--just a few months ago--I was coming off a high from my first marathon and focused on getting stronger and faster. I worked hard in our weekly track workouts and managed to move up into a higher wave group (runners are seeded into "waves" based on their pace--the faster their pace, the higher their wave), as well as set PR's in my 5K, 10K, and half-marathon events. I was on a roll!!

And then these injuries happened.

And now I find myself pulling back just a little bit so I don't reinjure myself--which is probably good on a prevention level, but not so good at helping me continue along the path I'd set for myself and riding on the momentum I was on.

There has to be some sort of delicate balance to all of this, though, which I am trying to find. Yesterday, I went out for a solo run, just to keep testing and finding how far I can push the envelope without hurting myself again. I was shooting for a 4 miler but ended up doing 3 miles--it became obvious rather quickly that the cold I had last week and the severe allergies that have been banes of my existence have taken a toll on my aerobic endurance, and I found myself sluggish and feeling blah within the first few feet.

But then a miracle happened. At the 3-mile turnaround, I decided that even though I was going to go for a shorter distance that day, I was going to push myself as far as I was going to go. If nothing else, it would end the run that much sooner ;). And so push myself, I did--and guess what? I started to feel better and better as the run went on! When I finally got back and looked at my overall pace, I ended up running an average of an 11:43-minute pace per mile. Not spectacular by any means, but under 12, which my usual pace per mile. And it is just a minute over my best 5K pace, which I set during Winter season. So all in all, not bad, even though I was still "pulling back" somewhat.

Small victories--I'll take 'em :).

Are we ready to do this thing?

This Saturday (May 30) is the big day: Summer season kick-off for Team In Training! It seems like yesterday that we had the wrap-up party for Summer 2008, and yet here were are again, getting ready to do it all over again.

Today was the last unofficial buddy run before the "official" ones start. It turned out to be a pretty special one, as we had old friends friends return--including an alum who just re-upped, a current coach who's been under the weather (I swear he didn't get his cold from me), a former coach, and a mentor who's made her triumphant return from injury (welcome back, Janine!).

It was a great reminder of why I keep coming back to TNT every summer, and why I'm so happy to be back with my peeps once again :).

Want to join us too? There's plenty of room on the team! We've got an information meeting at 9AM this Saturday at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara. Come check it out! If you won't be able to attend, give our out-of-this-world team manager a shout at simone.sarracino@lls.org and she will hook you up.

GO TEAM!

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak

In between seasons at the moment (5 weeks before Summer season kick-off!) and usually, there's not much to report--I usually spend the off-season cross-training to my heart's content (and times neglecting the running a little too much, thus causing myself to start from square one every summer) and resting up for the grueling, but fun, training coming down the pike.

This time around, I was determined to keep up my running stamina, committing to run at least 2x a week and running at least 6-8 miles on the weekends. But what's that they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?

I got injured in the second week of my off-season. It was a pesky hip flexor injury that led to pain in the hip, upper glute, and left side of my lower back--just as lovely as it sounds, by the way. As a result, I was sidelined for a little over two weeks and for a week, was not allowed to do anything weight bearing, the equivalent of asking a race horse to please stay in the stable and contain itself. At this point, it should be noted that I WASN'T EVEN RUNNING AT THE TIME I GOT INJURED. Yes, I can't even chalk it up as a battle scar.

So what was I doing that led to this, you ask? Nothing. Or at least, I still haven't been able to figure out what I did to trigger it--and neither has my physical therapist, so it defies professional assessment, apparently. It might have been due to the Napa Marathon, but we haven't been able to really prove that one way or the other. The only thing I know is that one day on the bus, while vacationing in Spain, I felt a sharp shooting pain when I got up out of my seat, a pain that got even worse and radiated to my side when I stepped off the bus and set foot on the ground.

Fast forward six weeks later and I am FINALLY feeling better. Thanks to a great physical therapist well-versed in the art of torture--oops, I mean, sports massage therapy, I was able to get on the road to recovery and am slowly but surely getting to where I was when I ended my season.

It wasn't the off-season I was hoping for, and yes, I will probably have to start from square one again come June 2, but with any luck I will be 100% healthy and get back to where I left off relatively quickly.

If not, well, I do have 5 1/2 months to get there ;).

P.S. Want to help me in my quest to rid the world of cancer? Here's your chance! As little as $1 can help fund incredible programs and research from the country's leading nonprofit devoted to curing Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Myeloma. Give today: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/NikeSF09/jenibarra

Even better, join the team! Contact Simone Sarracino at simone.sarracino@lls.org to find out how to join the Summer South Bay Run team (the bestest run team on the planet, natch :)).