Monday 7/28
     6AM Bike 7.5mi 39:30 Didn't have any drive to go fast whatsoever.
     6PM Run 1.5mi 11:24. 7:36 pace. My lower legs were pretty tired toward the end of this run.

Tuesday 7/29
     6AM Core only. I meant to do a run but when I got out of bed and started walking around, I felt this awful sensation in my lower left leg (where my stress fracture was). It did hurt a little, but it was a strange hurt. It wasn't like a shin splints type of pain or muscle soreness pain. In fact I can relate it most to the morning I woke up after I sprained my ankle in August 2006. It's just this awful pain that sucks. You can't be a man and take it, you just lay there and hurt like a bitch. So after about 20 minutes of putting on and taking off socks and trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do for a workout I decided to at least postpone the run until the PM. I had work and if I went out on a run and hurt it, then well work wouldn't be too great. Also, walking and standing at work would give me further information on how the leg felt. I decided to lift in the morning (originally planned for PM), but then my right wrist was hurting so I was only able to do core.
     6PM Run 1.5mi 11:05. 7:25 pace. Felt easier physically than day before, and no lower leg pain. No leg pain at work either. Thought it was fine.
     On another note, I started taking hot-cold showers after my runs with this one. I get in, get everything wet with a comfortable temperature (what I'd take a normal shower in). Then I put it on a cold temperature. This usually comes with quite a few profanities. It's the worse of all of them. I only put it on low enough so it feels cold. By the last set I have it all the way to cold and it's a lot easier than this one. Anyway, I'll take the body wash and clean my left arm/shoulder/back areas... then I'll rinse it. All the while I'm moving around and putting legs under the water. Basically I'm making sure that with each cycle, my whole body is hit with the temperature. After rinsing I turn the handle to hot then wash same parts on my right side. This goes on with my whole body.. then I split my hair up (not by left/right, but) by shampoo/rinsing. I'm switching H/C about 4 times each at this point, and each one I make it colder/hotter than before. After cleaning, I'll do a final rinse in the absolute coldest water and then the absolute hottest water. (Then, since it's summer I'll put it on cold again so when I walk out of the shower I'm not sweating. If it were winter I'd just walk out after the hot). So the whole body goes from freezing to burning 5 times in the 5-10 minutes I spend doing this, and all the muscles feel great after. Also, I focus mostly on my legs while doing this.
     This works because the cold water causes the blood (with lactic acid) to move out of the muscles, then the hot water causes new blood to rush in. Repeating this process ensures that I get out most of the lactic acid. If you have enough cajones to deal with the first few cycles of freezing water then go for it, its basically a fountain of youth for the legs.

Wednesday 7/30
     7AM Bike 7.5mi 40:40 Purposely went really slow.. I was getting bored of doing the same old route but I didn't want to add more miles (which is what I'd have to do to go another route because of the limited places to ride around here). I didn't want to add more to the bike because I was moving up from 1.5 to 2mi in the evening. The ride felt good... I actually spent most of it thinking about what I'd do if I won a million dollars. Well, not much would actually change about me. I mean sure, no bills to worry about, plus better nutrition and training apparel.. a larger non-running wardrobe and I'd probably buy a dark blue Corvette with a soft top.. not the current model but the one before, from 2001 to 2003 I think. I'd still go to UMass-Lowell, probably for all four undergrad years, because I chose the school for it's track program. If I were to switch to another school the only one I could imagine going to would be the U of Oregon. One of my dreams is to race a 5K at Hayward Field. However, my current mission, is to be a Riverhawk, and I will complete that before I try anything else.
     7PM Run 2mi 14:43. 7:22 pace. So far, each of my runs has been at a faster pace than the last one. This has all happened naturally but I did not want the trend to end, so I pushed. Awful idea, considering the physical therapist's instructions were to "slowly stress the bone". Nothing seemed bad about the leg yet.

Thursday 7/31
     6AM Core. I was supposed to lift too but left elbow was hurting.
     7PM Run 2mi 14:32. 7:16 pace. I once again pushed myself to run faster than the day before. Horrible idea. I noticed the exact same feeling in the exact same spot of my fibula during my shower that I had felt before my injury healed. A sarcastic 'congratulations' to myself followed; I had succeeded in getting a better time on this one day, but it cost me another stress fracture and potentially months. Thinking about it now, I could have just put 3 months of training into running a 14:32 2 mile in training.

Friday 8/1
Nothing. Off for leg.

Saturday 8/2
Lift+Core.

Sunday 8/3 and likely the next few weeks; Completely off. I'm still going to work because I need the money and I will go crazy if I have to stay inside the house every day for another month. Also, I dont think that the 10-15 days of four to six hour shifts I have left this summer are going to do substaintial harm.

Week Totals 7mi running. 15mi biking.

So my physical life came back for not even a two week affair and she left because I was nothing but a stubborn, selfish guy. OK so maybe my life as a runner isn't a daytime soap opera but it sure does seems like it to me. That's the end of me being thick-headed about "being fine" when I'm really causing another injury. That attitude has taken serious training away from me for 4 months now.

My problem is that I train too hard for my body but not hard enough for my mind. Ever. It seems that nothing I'm gonig to be able to do now or over the next several months, is going to be enough to satisfy me. I want to reach my full potential. I want to be at my full potential for my whole life. I mean of course, my "full potential" will be faster in 5 years than it is now, and probably faster (depending on the distance), 5 years after that. When I hit 40, I'll probably start getting slower and that level of "full potential" will just get slower. That I can deal with. What I can't deal with, is being able to be outside running 50mpw no problem but instead being inside typing on a computer about how I can't.

I try to be perfect every day but I'm always far from it. I spend all morning figuring out solutions to my problems, then spend all afternoon creating more. I love this sport but I hate what I'm doing in it. I want to take care of my body of course, I hate being injured more than anything. However, I also hate working less than 100%. How can I go out there and do 100% of what my body is capable of but not get injured? I just can't seem to figure this out; in order to reach my full potential, I have to work very hard. However, if I work very hard, I get injured, thus eliminating all the benefits of the training I had done.

So, when I get back to training, what do I do? Do I take a more recreational approach to training, and simply "listen to my body" and increase mileage and speed as my body feels right? Or do I go back to training with an all-balls mentality and work my body hard enough to consider myself doing what is necessary to reach the next level of my running ability? The first option keeps me healthy but in order to do my best I need to do the second option. My problem is, if I do the first one, every day I'll wonder how much harder I can be pushing myself, but if I do the second one, I'll be injured and hoping I could just go out and do a 30minute 5K just to enjoy running.

It's a huge headache. Neither option lets me do what I want to do. However, I'm going to go with the first option because obviously the second one hasn't been hurting. I'll add on elements to my training as soon as it feels right. However, I'm afraid that I'll go too hard too early again. It's impossible to make a decision that will allow me to be injury-free AND as fast as I can be, at the same time.

Well, I'm going to close this out with a hope, the same prayer I've been saying to God for the past few days. I hope that this layoff goes by quickly because I've had quite enough of being away from serious training. God has been burning me in the furnace of adversity. I don't know how well-done he wants me to come out, but no matter how long my troubles continue I will have to withstand them if I am to become the greatest runner I can be.