Discomfort vs Pain

Was listening to the Steve Somers interview of Dave Lennon of Newsday from last night where they were talking about the Mets injuries, and Jose Reyes in particular, and discussing discomfort vs pain.  Discomfort is something you can continue to work through, where pain is when you need to shut it down.  It really hit home for me, because I’ve been having lots of discomfort lately in my legs.  I’m still running, through the discomfort, and hoping I can hold it at bay and turn it around, before it starts becoming pain.  Once we get to ‘pain’, then it will be time to take a break.  In addition to the thigh/groin issue I’ve been having for a few months, I’ve now starting feeling some tendonitis behind my left knee.  Time to ice religously, stretch daily and focus more on swiming and biking for lower impact on my legs.  Most years, I run hard in the winter and spring, and then dial it way back in the summer before picking it up again in September.  That break usually gives me the time to heal from any injuries that start up.  But, this year, with my focus on summer triathlons, I’m not taking the normal break that I usually get this time of the year.  A good goal, then, for future years, is to figure out how to stay injury free, while running year round.

Yesterday, managed to swim and run.  Was able to get up early to go to the pool at the gym.  Covered about a half mile in the pool.  It was an ugly half mile, with lots of breaks, and not a whole lot of good free style, but I’ll take it.  Half mile is the swim distance at next weekends sprint triathlon at Harriman State Park.  Last night I was supposed to play softball, but once the rain started coming down  around 5pm, the game was cancelled.  That freed up my time to go for a run last night.  

I felt obligated to run, since it was National Running Day.  My new favorite rainy day course is going down 1st Ave to East River, then down the East River bike path to Wall Street, and then turning around and running the reverse.  This run was not easy at all.  To start, I had some ‘discomfort’ at the start due to my injuries, and it took a little while to warm up.  Then, my legs just felt generally tired and dead.  I’m assuming this is because I was not fully recovered from the Brooklyn Half Marathon from Saturday.  I struggled through it, and finished the 5.2 miles in 50 minutes and change.  Actually, not bad at all considering my slower pace, and not catching a couple of traffic lights at major intersections.  Could be my imagination, but it seemed like there were more runners out on East River than I usually see, hopefully due to National Running Day.  As an aside, they’ve started digging up the entire sidewalk south of South Street Seaport, to at least Wall St.  I thought maybe this would be the site of the new Water Taxi Beach, but I see that the beach is already open!  Hopefully they get this construction done quickly so that we can get the full extent of the walkway back in this very crowded area.  

I know I’ll be fine for my tune up triathlon next week, but need to be careful to make sure my legs are OK for the New York City Triathlon, which is 7 weeks from Sunday.  In the meantime, I’m thinking about finding the time to go see a doctor about the thigh/groin injury to find out exactly what it is.

Tomorrow afternoon, heading out to Middlebury, VT.  Bringing my bike along – will try to get a good ride in on Saturday, and maybe a run as well on Sunday morning.