ICE

Well, I guess this is good news.  Doug, my massage dude, thinks that this is all muscle and soft tissue and while I need to pay attention to it, it isn't the same as my stress reaction last year.  I already feel tons better, although sore from his work, but responding well to advil and ice.  He told me to quit worrying, but this was an acute pain, so I think it was justifiable to worry a little bit.

He suggested that the ice wraps I was using, while helpful, didn't stand up to a good old ice soaking.  Well, I bought a bucket on the way home from work and tried to do a mini ice bath last night.  HOLY S#$%#$%t!  That was the most painful thing EVER!   How do people do this and sit in it?  It wasn't the cold that bothered me, it was the intense pain that shot through my leg that made me only last 10 seconds at a time.  WOW!  The water finally got warm enough that I was able to submerge my entire leg and leave it for about 10 straight minutes.  Then of course I read tons of advice on ice baths and I was doing it wrong.  Oh well, I learned, will try again tonight when I have more ice and a better plan.  This article on Active.com was probably the best one i found.  Basically, I need to be more conservative with the temp and go from there.  I guess I will be lugging one of my lab thermometers home so I can be more accurate as well:)  SCIENCE!

I was also given the green light on a long run (which will make the above puppy very happy), which will be my longest run to date of 16 miles.  The temps look great for tomorrow, but of course the humidity looks disgusting, even at 4 am so will probably doing a walk/run.   I am also debating about doing a slow short run today to see how it feels.  Again, I never have pain when I run, so it always makes my injuries tricky.  Maybe a bike ride might be more inline but we will see how hot it gets.  

Have a great weekend!  Will probably have a long run recap and a weekly run recap (will be short LOL)