Best laid plans…

So my return to running got off to a flying start, I made it all of a week before I got injured and had to record my first DNS of the running season!

Yup! Pretty much...

 After a pretty good week kicking off the running season I was feeling pumped to be heading to Park Run on Saturday morning. It was cold and damp and I had been out the night before so would have happily rolled over and stayed in bed that morning.

I turned up to the start line and coincidentally met a friend from my tri club who was doing a little bit of a Park Run tourist thing having stayed locally the night before. We chatted absently while we waited for the allotted time to roll round before we could set off. It is also fair to say that I was pretty pumped as I was just starting a week off work (my first in 9 months) and as such I had grand plans for smashing my chores and getting a few “no time pressure” runs in during the week.

The run started and off we went…as usual I had self-seeded too far back and as such had a little bit of weaving to contend with in the early stages but nothing that was an issue. As we trundled onward en mass I looked to my left and there was my friend keeping pace with me stride for stride, I smiled to myself and thought that this would be a good run! Well my hamstring had other plans…a mere 700mtrs into the run I felt a sharp pain in my left hammy that led me to pull up sharply and come to a stop. Waving my friend on (she PB’d the course!!) I stopped and attempted to stretch and ease the ache a little. I then tried a couple more strides and was quickly informed by my leg that it was done for the day and I was going home… Ahhhh the joy of limping back passed the running to the questioning looks and occasional questions of “you alright?” to which you can only reply in a very dejected affirmative and continue to sadly trudge back to the car.

Once home I iced my leg, grumped at my wife and sons and pretty much moped about for a couple of hours before I sort of pulled myself out of it…at least it is in the first week of the season and not the week before my marathon.  

Monday I saw my physio and was told that I had a minor hamstring strain and there would be no running for the rest of the week. Sheesh, great start to the week off…what I did get however was a bunch of various strengthening exercises to start working on improving my hamstring strength and trying to help prevent this occurring again. I also had several follow up appointments all of which showed signs of improvement each time. I gave away my race bib for the half marathon that I was scheduled to do on Sunday just gone (HBF Run for a Reason) considering that the bigger picture is more important at this time. I have my follow up appointment on Wednesday night and am hoping for good news given that I now no longer have any residual pain feeling within my legs at all.

The week off was not a total bust with some fantastic family time individually with my sons (let the oldest one play hooky from school and we went to the movies and generally just hung out and took the youngest one to the zoo on another day and had a ball with him there running all over the place!) and then also completed a large number of neglected chores and continued work in our back yard which involved a considerable amount of heavy lifting, digging (cursing) and moving about…a successful week off!

So for now and to end off, I had my first DNS for the running season, it wasn’t the end of the world and I intend to come back stronger from it and I had an AWESOME week off (and am back at work for a rest :p)

Thanks for reading.