Weekly Summary: March 1-7

A look back at the week:

03-01-2010

Mon-AM: 14 miles (2:05) Green Mt. Ranger-Greenman, 2800'
              1" of fresh snow on the trail.
03-02-2010
Tue-AM: 15 miles (2:08) Green Mt. Ranger-Bear Canyon, 3000'
             5am start afforded me an incredible moon-set.
03-03-2010
Wed-AM: 14 miles (2:04) Green Mt. Ranger-Greenman, 2800'
             Spring is here!  Beautiful morning.
        PM: 14 miles (2:00) Green Mt. up/down Amp/SR/G'man, 2800'
            32:49 for the climb and then 2.5 miles of barefoot on
           Kitt Field in the sublime evening air. Ran with Jeff. Low back
           hurt on the downhill from when I fell earlier in the week.
03-04-2010
Thu-AM: 14 miles (2:07) Green Mt. Ranger-Greenman, 2800'
             Tired, but felt better after the run than before.
       PM: 13 miles (2:00) Green Mt. up & down Amp/SR/Gman, 2800'
            Easy effort 34:45 climb on tired legs in slow, punchy snow 
           conditions. Tacked on a mile barefoot at the end.  Back hurt.
03-05-2010
Fri-AM: 13 miles (2:06) Green Mt. Ranger-Greenman, 2800'
          Hmmm...disconcerting.  Back/butt really sore by the end.
03-06-2010
Sat-AM: 4 miles (:32) Kittredge Fields
         Knew the night before that my back wasn't going to allow
         any real running today, so, despite the 60F+ temps I just
        jogged barefoot.  Back sore by the end.
03-07-2010
Sun-AM: 1 mile (:10) Boulder Creek Path
        Back no worse than yesterday, but definitely still an issue.
Total
-Miles: 102
-Hours: 15h12min
-Vertical: 19,800'
Green Mt.: 74 summits over 66 days

(#72)

Kind of a blah week.  It started off busy with a bunch of schoolwork and then I had a bad fall that has--as I feared--proven to be a pretty substantial issue.  I was coming back from my early morning run and turned left off Baseline onto 10th Street, heading downhill.  I like to run down Cascade Ave, parallel to Baseline, because it has way less traffic.  Anyways, I stepped on some black ice on the corner of 10th and Cascade, my feet instantly shot out from underneath me and I fell really really hard with all of my weight landing directly on the just-off-center bump on my extreme lower back that I think is created by the protuberance of the right side of the sacroilliac joint.

It was kind of scary as it felt like my entire body went numb for a couple seconds, but after just lying there in the middle of the street for a few moments I got up, walked it off, and gingerly finished the run.  However, over the course of the week it's progressively gotten worse until by the end of the week it was seriously affecting my ability to run and even walk.  I'm hoping that a simple chiropractic adjustment (and maybe a little time) will make it all better, but right now the sciatic nerve is acting pretty upset.  

I'm pretty frustrated that this is in no way an overuse injury, but has seemed to become subsequently worse with running.  Also, the knee is feeling great and I was planning on testing it further this weekend with a 3-4hr run in the beautiful weather on Saturday, but that obviously didn't happen.  We'll see.  Before the weekend I was +10 on the 100 summits in 100 days timeline, so I fortunately have a decent cushion there and can accommodate missing a few Green ascents right now.  Unfortunately, it's not always so easy to mentally accommodate the absence of a daily mountain summit, but I'm committed to being smart about this bump and will give it the time it needs to heal.