Last week I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers and hit "confirm" to register for this:

And....the next day I promptly injured my hamstring on a 3x2 mile tempo run. To be fair, it was a bit sore after the speed work from the following week. I'd done speed again on Tuesday, then run easy on Wednesday and Thursday. It was feeling much less sore, so I went ahead with the second dose of speed work on Friday as planned.

The workout was 3x2 mile at 6:20-6:30 pace. It was raining so I opted for the treadmill. Did a 1.5 mile warm up, then 6:31, 6:31 - 2 min rest - then 6:27, 6:27 - 2 min rest. I started my third set at 6:27 and was alllllmost done with that 5th mile when I took a step and felt a huge twinge in my right hamstring that made me jump to the sides of the treadmill, wincing in pain. Tried to run easy for a few paces and the hamstring was not having any part of it. So I scrapped the workout and run and just gently stretched and cooled down. I sadly (but wisely) decided not to run the Saturday long run with friends as planned and spent the day with family celebrating my nephew's birthday. I foam rolled and iced and wore my compression shorts around the house.

Sunday I went for a tiny little run to test it out. Still very sore, but improving. Felt like I wasn't getting the proper push off and power on that leg and my gait felt off. Was hoping for 6 miles but called it at 4 since I felt like I was doing more harm than good by trying to force it. On a happier note, I also taught BodyPump and had some of my very favorite people show up to take my class: my family! Three of my sisters, my sister's boyfriend and my Mom all took my class and had a blast - along with getting a great workout! They only heckled me a little bit and I got a big kick out of making them work hard!! Extra pushups for everyone!

Cross-trained Monday on the Arc Trainer and had a massage.

Today I went out (with fingers crossed) for a 5-mile run. While that leg still feels off (adductors are very tight on that side, and hamstring still feels tender), it was much improved and I was very happy to be able to run without wincing at every step.

Fingers crossed that this is a little bump in the road on the way to my Fall marathon. I am having flashbacks to this time last year when I was injured right at the start of marathon training for Harrisburg and had to take the Fall season off. It seems every time I actually hit the "confirm" button on a registration for a race, something pops up! Hopefully I've caught this early enough and with a few days of easy running and cross training I can nip it in the bud and be back on the roads to ramp up for Erie. I'm really looking forward to running Erie again. While the drive up there is LONG (almost 9 hours!), the course is great and several of my friends from my running group are planning to go up as well. I can't wait to train alongside them this summer as we all gear up to run. If I'm going to train through the heat and humidity of RVA summers for a September marathon it sure makes it nice to have others suffering along with me!

Fingers crossed for me on this hamstring, eh? Anyone out there have hamstring strain recovery advice? Who is running an early Fall marathon? Anyone else in for Erie? (you'll have a great time, I promise!)