Monday, March 28, 2011

face down...

A week which went from bad to worse...

Probably the way to portrait the week is that less than 1 second after this photo had been taken, I tripped into the chip mat of the finish line (red/blue plastic band) and ended the race face on the asphalt...





The bad started on Monday when I felt the left pain more painful than usual. So I backed off with the Km and run only 20K in total in 3 days.
The rest and a good dose of painkillers did the job and felt the foot coming along slowly.
Thursday was not too bad, with a kind of interval session on dirt road 5x3' at around 3'18"/km pace.
Friday I felt ok and run easy with a progression of 5k @MP effort at 3'40" pace which felt very confortable.
Saturday I run short of time because of the kids and did only 8km run easy.
Anyway, the forced rest boded well for a good performance on Sunday's 10K race, my last tune-up before the marathon.
During the race, I was more than happy to see my team mates S. and C. taking an early lead and I was happy to stay in the 2nd pack, ready to strike for a 3rd place and total sweep by our team
I did not warm-up properly, so I felt a bit tied up, but as the race progressed I felt more and more in control... until 7K... when my right hamstring cramped.
Running fast is really a nightmare for my right leg and yesterday I paid the price in full...
I tried to kept on running properly, but it was painful and I had to back-off a little and let the others go.
Strangely enough, nobody get close and anyway I was still running 3'30"/k with one leg only, so I crawled to the finish line in 34'15" for 7th place...
I could not lift my right leg anymore and it tripped into the D-tag chip mat... with me "flying" through the finish line. It was so silly and embarrassing...

Now I really do not know if I can even think to start a marathon... my right leg goes into spasm whenever I push the pace.
The root cause is probably down in the ankles and calves... in a sense, the body tries to protect the old injured achilles and avoid too much load on the achilles, limiting the dorsiflexion of the foot. but then all the load goes into the hamstring.
Now I really feel down. My body is organically more than ready for running a marathon in 2h35'-36', but my right leg can let me down in any moment....

I have 3 weeks for trying to put the things in the right direction, but it was really a big blow.

Total weekly: 70km...

1 comment:

Samurai Running said...

I feel for you Roberto. Hope it works out, sure it will one way or another.