Weekly Rundown- Crisis Averted?

Well, after weeks and weeks with no issues, I had a couple concerning niggles this week.  Nothing to panic over, but I would prefer to be niggle-free.  I’m linking up as always with Kim and Deborah for this Weekly Rundown.  Let’s just see what happened… Monday 4 mile run.  With all my complaining about the time change, I did appreciate a cooler run, since it was an hour earlier than usual.  I’m not a fun of running in the dark but it was light by the time I finished, as you can see. Tuesday Upper body day at the gym!  Good workout. Wednesday 13 mile “short” long run.  For once, everything worked in my favor for this run.  My daughter had jazz band (phew, that meant I could drop her off an hour earlier), once again the time change worked in my favor, AND it was a beautifully cool day!!!  In the low 60s when I started and low 70s by the end.  That might not sound cool to some people, but it was also CLOUDY the whole time, and that makes a huge difference in Florida. I felt so good on this run, I considered just continuing on and making it a really long run.  I mean, I won’t get a better weather day in March or April.  There were two big reasons why I didn’t- one is, I didn’t bring enough fuel.  And the second… in the last couple miles I could feel that my left achilles was aching. Now, I felt so good on this run that I ran a LOT of sandy areas of the trail, and I think it was too much for that achilles.  I finished the run with it feeling, not injured, but stiff and achy. Thursday Well, I’m not taking any chances!  I got myself to the gym and got on the bike, because the stationary bike is so much fun.  Just kidding.  I didn’t want to stress that achilles at all, and I figured the bike was my safest bet.  I listened to a podcast and the 45 minutes flew by!  JUST KIDDING.  Those minutes crawled.  Darlene, I feel your pain.  But I got in some cross training and rested that achilles, so it was good.  UNTIL… Later on at work I was getting up from a seated position and I felt a strange and painful twinge in my left quad.  NOW what???  I’m up and down all day at work- kneeling, squatting, sitting, standing, and every time I got up or down that quad got worse, until by the end of the day it was seriously sore.  The only explanation I can think of is when I was on the bike, in order to combat the crushing boredom, I switched up the resistance a lot.  Nothing hurt (if it had hurt, I wouldn’t have done it) but when I had the resistance higher, I noticed that it was a quad burner.  Well, I wasn’t too happy.  Here I was trying to do something good for my body (give it a break by cross training) and I ended up with a new problem.  Sigh. Friday In light of recent events, I decided on a nice walk this morning.  For some reason I always measure my walks by time, not miles, and I went for 40 minutes.  It felt SO GOOD!  My achilles felt back to normal, and I could feel the quad pain but walking didn’t seem to make it worse.  As a matter of fact I’m sure it helped.  Motion is lotion, right? Saturday 4 mile run!  I didn’t feel the achilles or the quad at all, and I got to try out my new shoes, New balance 880s. After work I went to the gym.  It was leg day, and I approached it cautiously.  I warmed up with some air squats and then did some light sets on the squat press machine.  Everything felt good, so I decided to try a set of squats with just the bar.  I did four squats- everything was fine- but on the fifth one a jolt of pain went through that quad.  I stopped IMMEDIATELY.  I did some hamstring curls, but other than that switched it to an upper body and core workout.  Those areas definitely need work, but it was still a bummer. Later I went for another walk.  I pretty much set my quad back two days by attempting those squats (WHY???). It’s sore, but the walking felt good. Sunday DAY OFF.  Except that at some point in the day I’ll go for a walk.  I’ve decided to take a page from Kim’s book, and get out for a walk whenever I can.  And no more bike at the gym!  The bike is evil!  It will destroy your soul and quads! Moving forward… I have a big, big long run coming up on Wednesday.  I feel confident about the achilles (although I won’t overdo the sand running this time) and almost confident about the quad.  Running doesn’t seem to hurt it, and I should be able to get it all healed up again by Wednesday.  No more bike!  No more squats!  Fingers crossed. How was your week?  Did everything go as planned? Did you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?  – I forgot all about it.