Thu 6/13 - PM 60 minutes easy

Wellesley. Along the Brook path to the college, around the pond and over to the aqueduct before rejoining the brook path again. Calf and tib anterior once again on lockdown within 2 minutes of heading down the road. Had the brilliant and belated idea to do a couple of compressions on the tib anterior at the 15 minute mark or so, which released much of the tightness for at least a little while. Very modest improvement overall in the torqued up state of the right leg but it's still so far from being right. Of increasing concern is the sore throat, which hurts more than it should at this point in the game. I'm starting to think strep is likely. The driving rain doesn't help on that score, this week has been an unrelenting string of rainy shitty days.

Wed 6/12 - PM 30 minutes easy

Concord Center. Abysmal day thanks mostly to the right leg not feeling one whit better than it did yesterday. I had delusions of doing a workout today, which seemed like no big deal as recently as Sunday even after shuffling through the miserable slog the day after that turd of a 5k. However, the right calf was just as tight, tib anterior too, as it was yesterday. Hammie of course still locked up as well, and the source of sufficient discomfort to make anything faster than a jog impossible. Thought I would at least do a set of drills and strides to see if it would loosen things up but it wasn't happening so I cut them short. Thus ended the dream of doing anything remotely uptempo. On top of the ongoing leg woes, the sore throat I picked up over the weekend is going through the usual progression. Still making it hard to get a full night's sleep as if I ever get that anyway. Needed the rest more than I needed to flog myself as a result. Plenty of time rolling on the foam roller and lax ball after the run, glute and piriformis a mess.

Tue 6/11 - PM 85 minutes easy

Lincoln woods. An exercise in frustration thanks to the right leg being a stiff, tight, wound-up piece of crap. Thought things had improved over the past 48 hours as it felt relatively decent just walking around during the day and whatnot, but found out within the first 10 minutes that the calf was incredibly tight. Felt like running on a pegleg, with tib anterior muscle feeling like it was in complete spasm from doing more than its fair share of the work. Adjusted the pace and stride length and hoped for the best, somewhat better after taking a 5 minute stretch break around 40 minutes or so. From then on though the hamstring/butt got increasingly pinched and sore. Had it in my head that I was going to do hill drills, started to think better of it but of course stubbornly persisted in the hope that it might loosen things up a bit. Of course it didn't really, and the drills felt just as awkward and clunky as the rest of the run did. The final bit of stupidity was trying a few half-hearted short pickups on Old Concord on the way in, just to test out the leg. It felt absolutely awful, as in unable to function normally without sufficient pain in the thigh/butt area to force a slowing of speed. At a loss to grasp how the race on Saturday aggravated it to this degree, maybe just the coup de grace of something a long time coming but the leg is fucked right now. Much closer to injured than healthy for sure. The calf just doesn't respond to all attempts to loosen it up and the hammie/glute feels like it's stuck in a vise. If ever I needed massage work it would be now but my go-to guy is on vacation. To top things off for the day, rain started in the last 15 minutes or so after skies became increasingly overcast and threatening during the course of the run. Cool to the point of being clammy already so the rain was most unwelcome and made doing post-run mobility drills a pipe dream, merely adding to the frustration.

Mon 6/10 - off

Not planned, but necessary. Dry scratchy throat came on like gangbusters as soon as I went to bed last night and made getting a decent night's rest impossible. Really needed that rest for a host of reasons. Went straight home instead of heading to Lincoln after work and collapsed in bed. Weather also atrocious, with heavy rain moving in like on Friday only a couple of hours later in the day. Delayed payback from the vacation maybe but I'm really taking my lumps at the moment. Got in some stretching work at least before bed.

Sun 6/9 - AM 75 minutes very easy

GMNWR. The aftermath of yesterday's race turns out to be more depressing than the race itself. Right hammie locked up to an absurd degree, limping along the entire way as a result. Range of motion close to nil and fairly sharp pain when I flexed my hip just so. Didn't experience anything this bad after the failed 10k, or the up and down trail half marathon in Forest Park, among other recent efforts. I suppose the faster pace in spikes did the trick, whatever the case the degree of dysfunction and stiffness was an unpleasant surprise. The original plan was to cap off the run with a dip in the pond but I was going so slowly that over an hour had already passed by the time I got back to Emerson field from the refuge trails, and the prospect of slogging along on one leg up the hill to the pond and then back was just demoralizing. Also took too long to get going such that it was already lunchtime when I bagged it. Visiting the pond was the only reason for heading over to Concord instead of jogging in Area 51 instead, so the trip as a whole was a fool's errand. Although I did get to see the innumerable carp being pushed out of the refuge swamp into the river by the overflow from Friday's rain. To top things off, definitely developing a sore throat, no doubt all the late bedtimes playing a key role. It can only get better from here thankfully.

Sat 6/8 - PM 60 minutes incl. track 5k

Continuing to delude myself. Thought I could manage 75-6 pace for this race but found out soon after halfway that it wouldn't be happening. Made even more frustrating by the fact that there was a decent sized pack running exactly that speed which dropped me at 1200 and I was completely incapable of getting back on the train. In fact, the pace got steadily, inexorably slower as things went along as shown by the splits:

3:08 (1600 5:01)
3:10
3:12 (3200 10:08)
3:15 (4800 15:24)
3:17

A clear case of water finding its own level. After running much of the race in no-man's land I was passed near the end by a couple people, completely incapable of doing anything about it. The effort was certainly there throughout, finished feeling quite spent and the only tactic throughout was to hang on as long as possible. Given that I was able to run almost 40 seconds faster two years ago carving up the blame pie is inevitable. In hindsight of course the far too late bedtimes Wednesday and Thursday set me up nicely for this turd. Stayed up way too late last night as well. Bedtime continues to be much too late in general and much harder to change than it should be. Conditions less than ideal, after yesterday's rain cleared out it warmed up somewhat. Not overbearingly hot but enough to make for sticky humidity and of course the wind was coming down the backstretch yet again. Had I been tucked into the pack where I should have been it wouldn't have been that big a deal. Sleep and weather may have allowed me to run close to my modest seed time but I feel the right leg is responsible for the lion's share of the dropoff in performance. I thought while warming up that it was feeling relatively decent but this is highly relative by now as the whole thing is a mess. Calf is constantly frayed and whatever I tweaked in the glute/hamstring area back in January stubbornly refuses to get better. I'm convinced that the slowdown today is due mainly to the ever-increasing difficulty of maintaining a given speed on an ever-stiffening leg. Cooled down on the grass in bare feet and I could feel both calves and the right glute locking up with each passing minute. Spent lots of time rolling on the calf and butt after I got home, felt like I was moving adhesions around more than breaking them up.