Pinball....ping-pong......tennis ball....racquet ball.....these are the objects I most relate to this week. No, not the pinball wizard.....although last week had me feeling like I was going down that road......I realized maybe I wasn't controlling the pinball, but perhaps riding on top of it. Amazing ride for sure.....but the rebound leaves you a little sore.
Week started out as week 3 of the "3-up" portion of my training month. I was feeling pretty solid and even a bit confident. Was staring a 20-mile run in the face, and given my brick on the Sunday, I wasn't going to be able to do "long-run-Monday" which has been becomming tradition as Lindsay's Training & Kid soccer both have had the legitimate dibs on the weekends. So after running the hard brick on Sunday, I decided I'd lay low on Tuesday as in really-low (in actuality I crashed and fell asleep at 730P) and "sneak" in my long run on Wed.
Ever the efficiency-disciple, I picked a very challenging hilly 20 mile route and for the first 15 miles, things went at least as well as planned. At mile 15 my legs were really really tired and I stopped for a minute to refuel. No big deal, until I started going again, up the final (and pretty long/steep) hill. My L knee, the complainer of the two, started doing its thing. I didn't think much of it, I've had this argument so many times before.......and about 3/4 to 1mi later it gave up and we were back on track. By then I was more fatigued than I realized and by mile 17, I was doing the shuffle. 4 hours later the knee was swollen and I realized I should've really tried to communicate rather than just arguing with my knee. Sound like a marital dispute more than knee pain? Well, as I'm sure some others will attest, sometimes these injuries are a lot like that.....and for a couple of days we weren't on great terms. The knee would complain, and I'd pacify with some aleve.....but by the end of the week, we both started to reconcile and it let me have 20 minutes of treadmill work last (Sat) night in the hotel as Lindsay sat in the room contemplating the Marine Corps Marathon only a few short hours later. So that was the physical pinball.......how about the mental pinball?
Well, let's just say it has to do with leaving the oldest home so she could help her team win and stay in first place on the soccer field. That mixed in with some crazy winter weather in fall....a brother that rocked a marathon and at the same time JUST missed an incredibly lofty goal, a wife that CRUSHED her previous best and is now coping with the physical aftermath of pushing to the limit, a trip to, from and around Washington DC and 5 people who are sitting in the lobby of the hotel watching me type.
Bottom line? It'll have to wait.......but I will tell it. Maybe in 5 or 6 hours when I'm back in NJ.
Until then,
Mike E.
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