Throwing caution to the run

Gimme shelter

Today's run (street): 3.8 miles

We have guests staying with us until Tuesday, so I've lost my running locker room (AKA the guest room) for a few days. I got my stuff together early so I could go out before our visitors arrived. My goal was to run about 5 miles. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way.

The soreness I've experienced over the past two weeks seemed to be going away and I had high hopes that I'd be free of it by next week. When I started my run, the pain was even more noticeable than it was at the beginning of yesterday's run. My plan was to do a couple of loops around the business park and then add some miles in an adjacent neighborhood. After running a mile in my neighborhood, I felt concern about overdoing it and modified my route in the name of caution.

I ended up staying on my local streets and kept it moderate. As I warmed up, the pain began to minimize and I wondered if I should do some extra dynamic stretching or put direct heat on the sore area right before my next run. It was chilly this morning so I had a couple of thermal bottom layers that probably contributed to my fast warm up. Along with that, I wore my new-old running vest and an actually new ASICS PR Shelter beanie that I got last week.

Even though I cut it short, I was glad that I was able to get in a run this morning. Better still, the soreness has diminished throughout the day. I'm hoping that means the inflammation that is triggering my sciatica is lessening. I'm continuing to run easy, even though I want to start picking up my training pace so I can prepare for racing in early 2015. I just have to be a little more patient.