Weekly Log: 12.8.14 - 12.14.14

Monday - Westerly, RI - 11.4 miles

225 push-ups (standard/military/wide/decline) 30/25/35/25/30/20/30/30

The office was closed due to much of the staff returning from Miami the day before.  With the day off, I had originally envisioned a long Arcadia run but the morning began to get away from me and I had shopping scheduled in Westerly for the afternoon.  I had considered Woody Hill but I opted for the Grills Preserve which I'm more familiar with.  Good thing too, as my entire run was accompanied by the sound of gunfire coming from Woody Hill.

It was a little chilly but I warmed up quickly.  I followed the trails along the perimeter of Westerly Grills, before crossing the magical silvery bridge and taking on the technical trail.  I was around five miles at this point and the ol' janky knee was beginning to ache as usual but I bore on and it never got worse.  The miles ticked away and I was pleased to get over ten.  It was nice to finally be out in the woods and get in a decent trail run.  Felt good!

Tuesday - 0 miles

Fuck this knee.  After yesterday's Grills adventure I can barely walk down the stairs today.  You'd think I just ran a 50k.

Wednesday - East Providence, RI - 5 miles

Gah, I've got some kind of painful twinge at the base of my neck.  I don't think it's from the push-ups as I had some DOMS yesterday but otherwise felt fine.  Hopefully it'll disappear in a day.  Tomorrow I have an appointment with the sports medicine doc in the office below mine.  Knee is still sore from Grills but I figure I should give it some work today so that it's easy to identify the sore spots tomorrow.  I felt alright during the run - the run itself was unremarkable but the Ten Mile River was impressively high thanks to the recent rains.  I can only imagine was a disaster this area was during the March 2010 floods.

Thursday - 0 miles

Neck still hurts.  Went to the doc who said that according to my X-rays my janky knee looks great.  He thought it's probably just a minor thing brought on by overuse.  He recommended keeping the mileage low and very gradually raising based on how the knee's feeling.  I almost wish he had found something definitive on the X-ray as "staying the course" hasn't done me much good so far.  Guess I'll just keep the mileage very low for a while and see if that helps.

Friday - 0 miles

No running today and now I can't even do upper body stuff because my goddamn neck still hurts.

Saturday - 0 miles

I hate bailing on a group run so close to my house but I'm going to rest my knee considerable for awhile.  On the plus side I did make another 2.5 gallon batch of 15 Minute Pale Ale this morning.  I got the entire prep/brew/clean-up process down to 90 minutes which is not too shabby!  At night I was sitting on the couch and I stretched my other leg too far - my calf seizes up something terrible.  I haven't had one that bad in a while and it took a while before it loosened up.

Sunday - 0 miles

Now not only does my right knee ache but my left calf is extremely sore from last night's seizing.  Had quite a limp first thing in the morning.  It improved over the course of the day but it was still tender to the touch by the evening.  I took Oliver over to Carter Preserve for a dog walk - he's such a spazz when we walk in the woods.  He nearly strangles himself on the leash he's so excited.  It works much better when we run but there would be no running today.

Oliver is either yawning, barking or choking.  Take your pick.

Weekly Mileage: 16.4 miles
Year to Date: 1,683.6 miles

This week started off with a great run and went to shit from there.  Looks like I'm going to have to dial back the running even further in the hopes of besting this janky knee.  I still hope to run the Old Mountain 5k next weekend though I'm not in racing shape.