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March 27, 2006

Twinginess and the MBM

The challenge this weekend was to juggle a long run of 15 miles with a trip to Cleveland. I didn't want to do the long run on Sunday - I knew I wouldn't have time before my flight home, and I didn't want to count on having enough time after I got back to Chicago, as that would guarantee something tragic would happen and I'd end up spending a quality afternoon hanging around Hopkins. My initial thought was to do it on Saturday, since I'd have plenty of time. Then I took another look at my plans for the weekend, and realized that there was a 98% chance I'd be hungover on Saturday. In the interest of Getting Up To No Good, I decided to try the run on Friday.

Sure, it wasn't the best plan. Sure, it was the day after a hard hill/speed workout. Sure, the Mystery Butt Muscle (MBM) may not go for it, but I figured I'd at least try. You only get to be young and stupid once, right? So on Friday, despite having the day off work, I got up nice and early, got all set to go out and run for a few hours, and then grabbed my transit card on the way out, just in case.

Yeah. I was glad I had it. Everything started out OK, but after about 3 miles, the MBM started twinging. It wasn't that bad, so I thought about doing the whole 15 anyway. Then I came to my senses. I would have enough time to run on Sunday, as long as my flight back was on time. Besides, it was probably better to stop, let everything rest, and have a better 10-12 mile long run on Sunday than to drag my twinging ass through 15 miles on Friday and be paying for it all next week. Rather than turn around immediately, I decided to keep going until I hit 5 miles, and then just take the train home. Sure, I felt a little ridiculous sitting on the el in all my running gear, but whatever. I was heading away from downtown, so there weren't too many witnesses.

Saturday I was, indeed, hungover. I think I'm just getting too old for this whole "drinking" thing, as the hangovers are rapidly becoming far more severe than one would expect, given the total drinkage of the night before. I'm not saying I didn't have too much to drink - I'm just saying I didn't have anywhere near enough to justify how freaking awful I felt all day. At least I didn't have any plans until Saturday evening (Rock climbing! Bowling! Two great tastes that really don't taste all that great together), and, hey, I had a good time on Friday night, so we'll call it even. I guess. Stupid hangovers.

When I got back to Chicago on Sunday afternoon, I felt tired, dehydrated, and completely lazy. I'd e-mailed the coach on Friday to let her know what was going on with my twingey butt, and floated the idea of only doing 10-12 miles on Sunday, depending on how much time I had. This was an idea she fully approved of, and so I took advantage of it. Instead of running out the door as soon as I got home, I took a nap. Then I went running. Since I was feeling lazy, I opted for very easy 10 miles. This was, quite honestly, the most mellow 2 hours I've ever spent running. When I got done, I felt more like I'd taken a nap than I'd run 10 miles, and it was fantastic. I was actually pretty surprised to see that I'd averaged a 12:15 pace for the run, since it felt more like a 15:12 pace.

Sure, the MBM got a little twingey here and there, but nothing too serious. I spent some quality time stretching it last night, and tonight there will be a stop on the way home from work to pick up some tennis balls. The coach agrees that it's probably my piriformis talking, so the tennis ball treatment is going to be the way to go.

Posted by Dawn at March 27, 2006 12:47 PM

Comments

Posted by: Dawn (aka Pink Lady) at March 27, 2006 10:26 PM