10K at Fort Ben/Gobblers Jog 5K - Dealing with a Weird Injury and the London Marathon

I did not write a race report for my 10K at Fort Ben in October, as it ended up being a bad (and painful) race for me. But since I have some more races done and/or planned, as some updates of this weird injury, I thought of putting those thoughts here.

The Injury

Two months before the 10K at Fort Ben race, I took Sasha to the vet. Sasha was a COVID adoption that was returned to the Humane Society two years later. She does not do well with other cats (at least she didn't until now) and freaks out whenever we put her on a carrier and take her anywhere. Understandable, as she might think she is being returned.

Anyway, I took her for her one year checkup, vaccines, and to discuss medication options for Ms. Freakout. The vet thought Prozac would help her and we got a plan. But for this visit, Ms. Freakout freaked the fuck out. She pooped on the carrier on the way in, and worse, she peed the carrier and herself on the way back. When I opened the carrier, she ran like a bat out of hell out of it peeing everywhere: the floor, myself, the staircase, everywhere. I found a towel and went after her to try to catch her and clean here and that's when I slipped on the pee and fell on my ass. As I was falling, my middle back (like the QL) hurt like a motherfucker from left to right. I had a painful lower back for 3 days but after that, it was like nothing happened. Nothing.

Except that 2-3 weeks after that, my leg started getting sore after runs; mostly when it was cold. No problem running, and no problem racing my fastest 5Ks in years as the prior two races and race reports show. Then came the 10K at Fort Ben. Until then, the "pain" remained a low soreness that only bugged me whenever I pushed the runs or pace. But not enough to worry me. And then...

10K at Fort Ben

This race was doomed from the get go, IMO. In 22+ years of running and racing, I have never ever ever forgotten my GPS watch. Never! Until today. And I didn't notice until I was at the FRC tent talking to my fellow club members and looked at my wrist. WTF. Since I was supposed to race this, I had a moment of panic and then thought, oh well, I'll be counting the running intervals in my mind while listening to music, I guess I can do that.

I don't know what pace I was running, as I forgot to look at the clock at the start, but I knew or thought I was close to my 5K effort from the week before. Which was not good since this was a 10K! So by mile 3, I walked a bit longer to calm my effort down as I was walking a huge hill. When I saw the 5K split and I thought I was around 34-35 minutes while my goal for the race was 1:10, I needed to slow down a tad bit more. So I switched from 2:30/0:30 to 1/0:30 run/walking for Mile 4 to see if could recover a bit from that 5K effort. And then by the of mile 4, my tendons around the knee tightened up. I started limping and was in pain. So I walked most of Mile 5, in pain. Until the pain went down enough for me to run/walk to finish. I can even see my leg limping in the finish line video even when running.

I was not happy. I had a half marathon in two weeks, my first in two years, and I finally felt strong enough healthwise to race it. But by the week of the race it was clear I needed to do something. Rest didn't help, so I started PT.

PT has been OK. In two weeks I have managed to continue running around the issue (PT and coach recommended it since resting does not improve it) and the exercises are making me stronger. The PT thinks the fall injured my glute and to compensate my tendons have been working harder and getting tired after 4-5 miles. I had a 6 miler before my HM that was so painful after Mile 5, I wanted to cry. Now I can run 5 miles without issues but we've remained low mileage for now.

The other option is a pinched nerve. And yes, sometimes the pain feels nerve related all the way down the foot, but for the most part the one that irks me is when my tendons get tired and flare. It can be sitting in the office hard at work, or at trial as I am about to walk to the witness stand. It has no rhyme or reason.

But there is hope. I feel better and most runs have been painless or with minor issues. I even managed to run the Gobblers Jog 5K on Thanksgiving and finished in a time that matched last year's race where I was running at 100% trying to improve my time vs now when I ran it easy. Progress is there; I just need this leg to STFU for good.

Because I'm running London in 2024 and no one has time for this bullshit.