The scariest run of my life

    So I recovered from my back injury and have been attempting to get into a consistent training regimen.  Towards the end of February I went down to Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee with a couple of buddies.  My back wasn't exactly 100% but I was looking forward to the trip and didn't want to back out.  The athletic pubalgia injury was still present but not as terrible as it was.  A perfect mix to do some mountain running !!!
     We drove down from Indiana right to the park.  I did about 13 miles and climbed about 3600 feet on the first day.  My lower back was super tight on the climbs which caused me to take multiple forced walk breaks during the effort.  Snow was about three to six inches deep on average and some drifts were between one and two  and three feet at times.  I ran up a trail called chimney tops.  Named for unique rock formations at the top of the mountain.

      The trail was hard to follow since it was covered up by all the snow and I had to follow the footprints of my buddies who were ahead of me and, at times, the blazes painted on the trees along the trail.  The run was hard and my back stayed stiff most of the run.  At one point on top of the ridge by one of the chimney formations the snow gave way and my right leg shot down off the trail.  Nothing was there to land on and I suddenly found myself crouching with all my weight supported by my left leg with my right leg dangling down. I was on the verge of falling down about fifteen to twenty feet. There wasn't anything to grab onto and I found myself powering up with my left leg.  Kind of like an impromptu pistol squat.  I got my right leg on solid ground and a few seconds later realized how close I just came to being totally fucked.  Thank God for all those Bulgarian split squats my trainer had me doing at the gym.  I honestly think things would have gone horribly bad there if it wasn't for my leg strength and balance that kicked in at that moment.

Chimney Tops and the trail

     Thankfully the rest of the journey up and down chimney tops wasn't as eventful as those couple of seconds.  The formations were pretty awesome and the scenery amazing.   I mostly just followed my buddies footprints the rest of the way.  I eventually came out to a service road and a junction with another one after that.

I followed that down until I came to a junction with a trail.  A sign indicated that it was a mile and a half to the trailhead.  I kept following the service road for a few more miles until I was worried that my mileage would end up too high for the first day.  I decided to turn back and take the trail back to the where the car was.  Bad move.
     The trail was snow covered and I had to follow blazes.  Nobody had been on this trail to give me tracks to follow.  About a third of a mile down the trail, ice and loose snow hampered my progress.  My Altra lone Peak shoe's traction was useless.  I started sliding down the ravine every other step.  I resorted to a kind of reverse kick where I drove my heel into the ice and make steps.  The going was slow.  I had to cling to trees and saplings in order to keep from sliding down.  At one point I had to break a stick in two and use them to stab into the ice and snow.  At this points I was using all upper body to drive one stick into the ice, reach over with my right hand and stab the stick into the ice, reach over with my left hand and stab that stick next to the right stick, and repeat.  My feet couldn't get traction so I had to lay on the side of the hill.  I advanced this way for about ten feet or so.  The feat was straining the tissue of my abdominal injury.  The stinging sensation near my groin was familiar and was not comforting.  This sucked.
     When I got over a small hump in the trail, it become walkable again.  I contemplated keeping the two sticks just in case I encountered a similar section again.  I decided not to.  I pictured myself falling on them awkwardly and stabbing myself with them accidentally.  That's how my luck was playing out.
     I made slow progress sliding my way along the trail.  At one point I supported myself with a large stick to give me more stability.  This lasted a small while until I hit a slick patch of ice and found myself sliding down the ravine.  I slid about 6 feet then I stuck my right foot out towards a small tree to stop my momentum.  I hit the tree rather poorly and my big toe screamed at me !!!  At best I just jammed the piss out of it.....at worse I just broke my damn toe !!!  It hurt like hell.  I clung to the small tree and rested for a couple of seconds.  I had to climb up the icy edge to get to the trail on a compromised toe.  This sucked.
     About a three quarters of a mile down the trail I encountered some footprints and signs of a person or people falling.  Falling a lot.  Whoever the tracks belonged to, they were having the same traction problems I was having.  They turned around at this point and headed back towards the parking lot.  This was fortunate for me because it gave me some hint of where the slippy spots were.  The unfortunate thing was that there were a lot more slippy spots.  None were as bad as what I encountered previously though.  My progress was made worse by my compromised big toe.  Damn, it hurt.
     About a mile and a half to two miles down the trail I encountered a young couple coming towards me.  I greeted them and just as I was going to tell them about the suckfest they were heading for the young man asked me "Have you seen a set of keys on a red laniard?"
     "Nooooo,"  I said slowly.  I turned around and looked back the way I came and then at the couple.  "That sucks.  This way is no joke."
    "Yeah.  We might have dropped it along here," he said.
    "I'll keep an eye out for it and leave it at the ranger station if I find it,"  I said.  "Wow.  Good luck."  That sucks.  I felt so bad for them.  I immediately felt better about my situation.  This encounter meant I was closer to the parking lot....I hoped.  The trail became better and I kept an eye out for their keys.  I didn't find the keys but hoped that they did.

stream heading up to Chimney Tops trail

     I eventually made it back to the car.  The toe wasn't much of a problem, but that was probably because of a mixture of the cold from the snow and just moving on it.  I had just jammed the toe and had significant bruising.  Later that night I had a slight limp and hoped that things would be better on day 2.    

2015: New Month, New Injury......Grrrrrrrrrr

    The title change of my blog to "Breaking Banul" has become kind of prophetic.  I have been suffering from an old....old....super old injury on top of my sports hernia this past week.  A couple of weeks ago I strained my back doing Zercher squats with a 115 pound sandbag.  The strain didn't happen all at once.  On the first day I went to use this particular bag I slipped a rib out of it's spinal socket trying to lift the damn thing off the floor into the Zercher position.  I did my sets and felt a pain near my shoulder blade afterward.
    The next day I paid a visit to my chiropractor.  He plopped the pesky rib back into place.  Looking back, I think the rib pain may have masked the initial damage lifting too much weight caused.  Later that day I did hill repeats climbing a little over 3,000 ft. of elevation in about seven and a half miles. At one point in the run I had a slight twinge in the spot but didn't think anything of it. I get these twinges every so often.
     A little backstory:  I fist damaged the disc to my lower spine while playing tackle football when I was about 16 years old.  I was tackled awkwardly and the weight of the tackler came down on my shoulders hyperextending my lower spine.  Lots of ouch.   Then about nine months later I was in the passenger seat of a Ford Mustang that was hit by a freight train.  The impact either aggravated the same spot from the tackle or an area close to it.  These two events created a weak spot in my back that acts up every now and then.  In the decades following these two events, I've had a myriad of things aggravate the old injury.  Lifting tool boxes, violent sneezes, slipping on ice, landing from a big jump, etc....
     For the past week now I haven't been running or lifting weights.  The up and down pounding of running was irritating the injury.  I would feel fine, go for a run, then wake up the next morning with a stiff lower back.  And I mean STIFF !!!!   Then the following day the pain came.  Grrrrrrrrrr.       
       The beginning of my injury coincided with the first major snow we've had in South Central Indiana this winter.  It's a lot easier to miss runs when there is ice and snow all over the damn place. Instead of just laying around I have been working on flexibility.  Stretching my hips and glutes seem to alleviate the pain in the spot.  Turning my focus to stretching and yoga poses has been a habit I have been trying to get into.  Recently at work, if there aren't any customers, I'll drop behind the counter into the pigeon pose.  Doing this has helped the back pain.   I hope to continue the habit after my back has healed. 
      I paid a visit to my chiropractor and he adjusted my spine.  I felt like the injury had healed enough but a spinal manipulation would help relieve pressure off the area.  One "pro" of visiting him is that he is always saying that I am "in tune" with my body.  The manipulation helped.  On the drive home I thought of how I felt like I have been constantly falling apart since mid-December.  One "con" of being "in tune" with my body.  Ugh.... One bright side is that I'm hoping that a nice side effect of this back injury is that my athletic pubalgia injury gets a huge opportunity to heal further.
     So here I am on my day off.  About three more inches of snow was dropped overnight.  I hadn't planned on running or lifting weights today.  I spent about an hour stretching and have been mostly resting.  Doing nothing is kind of nice.  I wouldn't want to make a habit of it.

Thanks for reading.

New Year.....Old injury

     So I recovered from my first 50 mile race and went into recovery mode.  It took several weeks for my right shin muscles to heal.  When they did I attempted easy runs to get back in the habit of running.  This lasted about half a run.  I got a bug in my butt to attempt to run faster.  I spent most of the last year just doing the grind of long distance running.  I needed something different.  Why not just go for shorter, faster runs?  So this lasted a couple of weeks......and then....
     Somewhere along the way I irritated my lower abdominal tissue where they attach to my pelvic bone.  And by irritated I mean I created tiny little microscopic tears where the connection occurs.  This is called a sports hernia, a hockey groin, or athletic pubalgia for you Latin fans out there.  I always love how I get "non-running" running injuries.  (I'm waiting for the day when I'm doing an overloaded Bulgarian deadlift and get a running injury !!!)

     I had this injury two years ago but it was more severe.  I couldn't run without severe pain happening.  I spent several months doing physical therapy and taking prescription anti-inflammatory pills.  I healed up, got better, and gradually built up my miles.  The injury was some weird thing that happened because my core was weak.  Physical therapy built that up and I started going to personal training at a local gym.
     The sports hernia came back towards late December.  I would go for runs and then hours later a soreness would creep in.  Sometimes a dull ache.  Other times a sharp pain.  Sometimes a blend of the two.  Not good.  I waited a couple of weeks to see if it would clear up.  Some runs would be fine....others the pain would come afterward.  There wasn't any consistency to the symptoms...or so it seemed.
     I noticed that faster runs where I pushed my speed were the times when the pain was more severe.  Could trying to run faster be irritating my lower abdominal muscles?  All evidence seemed to say so.  This revelation sucked.
    I went to my doctor.  He said it was likely that going from the slogging pace of an ultra to more of a 5k pace could have caused weakness in the tissue resulting in the tears.  He also said that as long as the pain wasn't present while running that I was on the mend. This meant I could keep running.
     He prescribed anti-inflammatory pills and said to do my physical therapy exercises from the last time this happened.  Three weeks passed and I had a check up.  Some minor pains were present but overall he was pleased with my healing.  He said to stop taking the pills on a daily basis and take them as needed.
     For the last month I've been in a strange place with my running.  I've been running less and concentrating more on my weight training and core work.  I signed up for the Mountain Mist 50k way back when my training was going awesome before the OPSF 50 miler.  I had to back out of that.  Pretty much donated money to an Alabama running club.  No biggie.
    My legs, core, shoulders, and back have all gotten stronger from this shift from running less to strength training more.  Sometimes my running has become more challenging because my quads were fatigued, and sometimes downright DOM'd, from that mornings squat workout or doing weighted sled drags.  I slowly got more excited about going to the gym than going for a run.
    I don't know why this has been happening.  Maybe because I can measure my progress in the gym better.  Weights are easy to gauge progress...This week I'm squatting 60 kilos.....two weeks later I'm doing 80 kilos.  Progress !!!   How do you measure progress in running?  By speed?  Oh, great.  Trying to get faster fucks up my pelvis and causes pain.  Hurm.  Thanks a lot universe.
     So for the past few weeks I've been trying to find a balance between strength training and running.  I also have to squeeze in the physical therapy core exercises plus some more advanced ones that I've thrown in for the extra challenge.  So my weekly mileage has suffered, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. My weight training has picked up...It's a good substitution.   I keep trying to convince myself of that.  I want to remain consistent with running and not all the 2014 work I put in just fade away.   Who knows?  We'll see what 2015 brings.  It sure is off to a challenging start.
    
    

Stupid mysterious foot injury

   The big race is aborted.  My participation in Operation: Double Secret Bigfoot is a failure.  I seem to have a possible bone bruise between my fifth metatarsal and the cuboid bone.  I don't know for sure because my doctor wants to rest the foot to see if the area heals and the pain clears up.  In the meantime, I have to wear a compression sleeve on my right foot.  I also have to rub some prescription strength bengay ointment stuff on my foot.  It burns just a little while it's on but luckily it's bad smell helps distract me from the burning sensation

please excuse my runner's toes

      .  The inserts kind of suck.  I've been wearing them a whole day.  My wife, who wears inserts, says it takes some time to get used to them.  "About two weeks", she said.  Fun.   I used to have funky feet as a kid.  I had to wear corrective shoes when I was about two or three years of age.  Thankfully, I don't remember ever having to wear them.  I remember going to the doctor about it but since I was a kid I didn't think anything about it.  It was normal.  Normal for me anyway.  I never thought about that time til now.  I guess the inserts having me thinking back to then.  I really don't remember any of it though.
     It's been a week since my last run.  That run felt good.  I went to McCormick's creek state park and ran a little over 5 miles.  I felt good the whole time with only a minor concern in my foot.  I didn't think anything of it since I knew I would be hypersensitive and mindful of my foot the whole time.  I ran, jumped and landed, and launched off rocks all without any pain or issue during or later that afternoon.  I came home and iced my foot just to be cautious.  I thought I was in the clear.
     Then the next morning I woke up to the same pain again.  I hobbled through my morning and was totally deflated and in a bad mood most of the day.  I called and set up an appointment with a podiatrist and just waited for the appointment day.
     So here I am writing this.  Part of me wants to go for a run, but there is the fear of aggravating the injury before it's healed fully.   But there's the fear and a plague of "what if's" that are going through my brain.  What if the inserts don't work?  What if I screw up the injury again like last week?  What if you're just being a pussy and driving yourself crazy for no fucking reason?  Things like that.

me driving myself batty with my "What if?" scenarios.

     It's a relatively minor injury that happened to occur at an unfortunate time in my training.  There are people in this world with a lot worse injuries and conditions than me.  I'm being kind of a dipshit about this whole thing in the grand scheme of things.  It's been frustrating but I've been keeping myself busy with weight training, stretching, and yoga.   To keep my cardio fit I've been riding an exercise bike.  I have no idea what I'm doing on the thing though.  I rode 30 miles on it and then 18 the next day.  My quads were tired the whole ride of the 18 miler but it was better than just sitting on my ass.
     The race I've been training for isn't going to happen for me.  I don't know how I feel about it.  I've had plenty of time to consider the possibility of not reaching the starting line for the race in the last couple of weeks.  Unfortunately I have gotten used to an injury taking me out of a race in the short time I've been back running.  I have a very small success rate when it comes to signing up for a race, training for it, and making it to the finish line it seems.  Anymore I'm getting the pessimistic mindset that any race I pay to enter is going to be a donation and I'll get to run it if I avoid injuring myself.  I don't know how healthy this is but I get a small amusement out of it.
         Part of me wants to blame winter for this, but could I just have a flaw in my running footfall? There is obviously something wrong with my foot caused by how I land on it.  If there wasn't a mechanics flaw, then how did the injury occur?  Could it be that I've just been getting lucky so far and my increased mileage brought the problem to light?  I have no idea.  Could the injury just be shitty luck and a fluke?  I have no idea.  Could it be that all the running I did was on roads and not trails?  I have no idea.  Is it better that I get to rest through winters last hurrah with an injury rather than through spring?  Probably.  Was I ready for the race?  I don't know.  My last big run was the catalyst for the injury, so it's hard to tell.  All of this has shaken my confidence.  They say that a lot of endurance running is mental.  I'm wondering if I have the mental fortitude to keep at this.  This injury has me wondering if I have the physical fortitude to keep at this as well.  I know this will all change when the smoke clears and I'm back to training for some race that, hopefully, won't end up being just a donation to some race director.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.

thanks for reading this 
 

Operation double secret bigfoot

    So my wife and I have been "secretly" training for an ultra race.  I say "secretly" because the closer we get to the race the more people seem to be finding out or figuring out that we've been training for something.  I've told a handful of people (my doctor, my chiropractor, my trainer at the gym, my massage therapist, the guy who you have to give your day off requests to at work).  People that needed to know.  It's not a big deal that the cats getting out of the bag.   I think it's getting so close that it's better for our nerves to tell people.
     I originally dubbed the whole thing "Operation Double Secret Bigfoot".  The reason I wanted to keep it all hush hush is because the race distance is new territory for me.  I just wanted to keep the event to myself, my wife, and a close group of friends.  My wife and friends have utmost confidence that I can finish the distance.
     Fifty miles scares the shit out of me.  Mentally I think I can handle the distance.  Physically is a whole other thing.  At the beginning of February I had a strange muscle dysfunction happen to a stabilizer muscle in my right shin.  It was fine to run on except when going downhill.  It hurt like hell.  I basically rested it for four days and then it was fine.  This led to a cut down week and a huge snowstorm.  This combo led me to do some treadmill running for the week. I ran 18 on the machine and then did a 5 or 6 mile run in town to see if the shin muscle healed.  Thankfully it did and it was then time to taper for a 50k training run.
     The 50k (31 miles) training run was a mixed bag of success and one failure.  I've been getting in the habit of taking electrolyte pills every six miles on long runs.  I did a tour of Bloomington and hit a couple of businesses for water breaks and water refills.  I stopped and stretched when I felt the need.  I had a couple of Ugo bars and a couple of Epic meat bars.
     At the twenty mile mark I ran into my friend Deke and that boosted my spirit and energy.  Then somewhere around mile 24 my left knee started giving me problems on a stretch of snow packed sidewalk.  The pain got annoying and wouldn't go away.  I decided to walk to see if that would be better.  Just slightly.  Then when I tried to run again the pain was worse than what it was, but lessened as I kept going.  It was around here that I also realized that I dropped one of my Salomon skin flasks.  That fucker cost me eighteen bucks.  I decided to cut the run and get back to my car.  Shortening the scheduled mileage by four miles.
     I went home and iced my knee.  Used a foam roller and a runner's stick on it.  Then took an anti-inflammatory.  I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night to take my dog out.  The knee was a little stiff and had a slight pain in it.  When I woke in the morning it was a little tender but totally tolerable.  By the end of the day it felt fine.  It was forty degrees outside when I got off work and I had to really resist going for a run.  I was scheduled for a rest day and common sense forced me to do it.
     I also had a slight weird twinge in my right foot the next day.  I was wearing my hiking boots at the time (which hurt my feet anyway) so I just kind of blamed it on them.  On Saturday I went for my a small five mile run and halfway through it I had a couple of sharp pains surge through the foot.  Then the next day,Sunday, I went for an eleven mile run with the intention of being mindful of the spot where the pain occurred.  It was a little tender at times but the tenderness came and went but never stayed.  I finished my run and was pleased that the foot pain was gone.
     So I started shoveling my driveway after the run and my foot started hurting.  Like Hurting !!!  Halfway through the task I started to hobble and my mood soured.  Damn !!!  I hobbled all day.  At the grocery store, at a charity dinner benefit, and in every parking lot.  I took Monday and Tuesday off of running and the pain has lessened.  I've been icing and taking anti-inflammatories. 
     So here I am typing this.  I'm confident the current injury will heal in time for the race.   I guess I'm worried that I'll have another injury pop up on the big race day.  If it happens; it happens.  It'll bug the piss out of me, but there won't be anything I can do. If it's something manageable I will just have to compensate for it.  I would like to finish the race but a DNF is always a possibility. 
     I look forward to pushing myself to a new distance personal record.  I know that I won't emerge unscathed.  I know I'll emerge changed, but hopefully for the better. My main goal is to finish the race and have fun doing it without destroying myself.  I guess I'm at the point where pushing myself to my limit and going beyond that is fun.  I like to think I'm capable of doing it....I just hope this aging body cooperates.  Hopefully, I'm getting all the possible injuries out of the way so when I get to the starting line I'll be nice and shiny.

Hurm.....Injured? Am I injured?......Hurm.

    So here I sit.  A couple of weeks ago when I got done with the "Eight Hours of Payne" non-event event, I had a slight pain in the outside of my left foot.  I didn't really think anything of it.  I had just ran a shit ton of miles so a little twinge in a body part wasn't unexpected.  The pain went away after a while anyway.  Perfectly fine and dandy. 
     I took a couple days off of running for some recovery and went back out for a four to five mile run around my neighborhood.  No problems.  Afterward I felt a little niggle in the spot that hurt after the big non-event.  I really didn't think anything of it.  The day after that I got about two miles from home on a post-work run and the niggle was back.  It was back and a little more bothersome.  I finished my route (which I was halfway done with anyway) and decided to give slack off on my running to let this heal before it snowballs into something worse. 
     Six days later, no problems from my left foot, I decide to hit it again.  Post work six miler: done.  Post work five miler:  piece of cake.  Post work five miler: hurm....maybe should have rested?  I just that small niggle creep up again.  I woke up the next morning and it felt fine.  I went to my gym and worked out.  Jumping switching lunges: fine. Weighted box step ups:  no problems.   Nothing.  Later that day.  Kind of a niggle.  What the hell?
     So Saturday, a group of us went to the Morgan Monroe State Forest with the plans to run the Three Lakes Trail.  I was kind of worried about the foot, but woke up with no pain in it.  So I decided to play it by ear.  I wanted to do two laps (each lap being 10 miles) and my friend Chris joined me. 
     The run started out fine.  My quads and glutes were experiencing delayed onset muscle soreness so the hills on this trail were tougher than I wanted.  We were cruising along and my foot was fine.  I decided the soft trail was just what the doctor ordered.  Pounding on concrete and asphalt aggravated the spot more than anything.  Eureka !!!  One more reason to not like road running.
     The day's run ended up being a twelve miler.  My legs were taxed from the previous day's weight work and I figured I could get a longer run on my day off in the middle of next week. My wife and I met up, said goodbye to our friends who wanted to do more miles, and we were off for home.
     While I was taking my socks off at home, I squeezed my foot where I was experiencing the here today gone tomorrow pain.  I immediately felt a sharp pain where I was squeezing.  Not good !!!  My foot felt fine otherwise, but when I squeezed it....Yipes !!!!  So, being the genius I am, I sat on the edge of the bed squeezing around the spot until I mentally mapped out the injured area and irritated the spot into hurting.  Hurm.
     My wife, who rolled her ankle on the run, was doing a cold water bath for her ankle.  When she was done, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to do so for my foot.  Twenty minutes in a cold bath will cure it all.  Then we decide to go downtown.  Walking around and no problems.  I get home and give the spot a slight squeeze and.......yipe.   Not so bad, but I'm not happy.  "I'll just not run tomorrow," I decide.
     So on Sunday I wake up.  Foot check:  slight niggle when squeezed.  Hurm.  Later in the day I do the worse thing I can do with a running injury: Google foot injury symptoms.  Mentally, I decide to reject anything that says I have any kind of foot cancer.  I look for running injuries.  Find that midfoot strikers could develop stress fractures in their metatarsals. Or that it could be a bruised bone.. Hurm. 
    Then I make the decision that if I'm looking up symptoms or causes for this sharp pain, I better just make an appointment with my doctor.  Monday morning I secure an appointment with x-rays and make a Jesse Pinkman meme and post it to Facebook.

     This leads to a couple of discussions on the thread.  Then my friend Savannah starts asking about where it hurts and how.  She says that she recently tore a ligament in her foot and it hurt her way more than just a little injury.  She posted this pic along with her comments

   Torn Tendon ?  Could it be that?  Hurm....So then I start googling all the possible tendons on the side of the foot and symptoms of tearing or injury.  Most of the injuries involve loss of balance as a major indicator.  I didn't have this, so I'm back to stress fracture.  Then something in my head tells me that I have a doctors appointment and that I need to get the fuck off the internet.  I decided to listen to the voice.
     The next day I get an X-ray done.  My doctor runs me through a battery of movement drill and I pass each one.  I tell him that I'm not really bothered physically by the injury, except when I run on roads.  (or sit and pinch, poke, and squeeze the area minutes at a time.)  He takes me to see my x-rays and I'm walking around the hallways with only one shoe on.  He says my bones look fine in the problem area.  No cracks, breaks, splinters, fissures....nothing.
     So we go back to the examination room and he tells me that my somthinginlatinus tendon may have a tear in it, but it is most likely tendonitis.  He then proceeded to tell me that this is an injury most commonly seen in dancers.  (Dancers that do lots of leaps and jumps.)  I told him that the week prior to the injury I was practicing running down hills and trying to get faster at it.  Then how at the Paynetown event non-event I was trying to bolt down the hills in order to give my quads a rest.  This information seemed to back his diagnosis. 
    I was given two choices:  a pricey MRI scan to help determine for sure what is causing the sharp niggle or to try not running for two weeks, do ankle strengthening exercises, and take an anti-inflammatory. I chose the latter and he agreed with my decision.  He gave the go ahead to cross training and weight workouts but to avoid any running.  
     I'm relieved there aren't any bruised, fractured, or broken bones.  Tendonitis or a tear is something that can heal more quickly than a compromised bone.   I'm more disappointed in the fact that I have a "dancer's injury".  Shit, my last major injury was more commonly found in soccer and hockey players.  I'm amused and lucky that I've been avoiding typical runner's injuries but shit.  I'm really resisting the urge to squeeze the spot though.  I haven't had any niggles today.  Technically, I hadn't run two days prior to the doctor telling me not to run for two weeks so I'm kind of on the fourth day at the time of this writing.  Piece of cake.  My personal trainer wrote me a leg heavy program and didn't want me running too much while doing it anyway.  (just look at that optimistic silver lining attitude !!!)  So, I'm winning there.
     But still......hurm.