Last night, I decided I would go to the gym and swim, rather than run, to rest my legs for the Brooklyn Half Marathon. Good plan. However, I did something kind of silly.
Over the last few weeks, a nagging injury to my upper thigh/groin area, has gotten steadily worse. Lately, I’ve been icing and trying to stretch daily, to try and loosen things up and get better. But, the reality is that it has not gotten any better, and in fact, may have been getting worse. My leg does not hurt when I walk and sort of does not hurt when I run (I can feel it when I start out, until it loosens up a bit), but I can definitely feel some pain when I flex my leg in certain ways, or when I do certain stretches.
Anyway, when at the gym last night, I did some very light weight lifting before my swim. I decided to have a look at leg machines to see if anything looked promising for exercising my thighs, and spotted the abductor/adductor machine. Got on that, and felt like it was just what I needed, and worked the area where I am feeling pain. So, without really thinking it through, I did 3 hard sets of both abductor and adductor, on a pretty strong weight. Then went for my swim and didn’t think anything of it. Until today, when I noticed my legs hurting more than expected. Then, realization slowly washed over me. Of course. My thighs are in pain because of a rough new workout on muscles that are not used to that kind of work. I’m sure the muscle soreness will not magically go away by 8am tomorrow for the race. I can only hope that with a slow start in the race tomorrow, they reasonably loosen up and do not cause to much trouble in the race.
I think I need to lower my 2:00-2:05 expectation to 2:05-2:10. Drat…
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That’s why it is better for beginners to learn from those who have walked the path already, not those who have only theoretically walked the path whose knowledge consists of what “should” be.
Perhaps, but, I’m not a beginner, and I ended up nailing the race anyway! But thanks for the “wisdom”.