I Broke My Ass, February Training, Race Plan Changes

It's official, I have broken my ass. What at first appeared to be a slight hip strain has become a full on case of bum breakitis. I should have been more careful but it seems that I inadvertently poked the running gods. When my friend and co running clinic instructor Chris Henderson pulled up lame in January with a glute problem I joked about his broken ass. I know better but I just couldn't help myself.

Did you know that bum breakitis was contagious? Neither did I but it is. It has to be because my butt was totally fine until I ran together with Chris at Robbie Burns. All was great until 6k and then blammo I was hurting. I guess 6k is the gestation period for this kind of thing.

That was a month ago and still no running. I did a test run on Monday and there is still significant pain. Not as bad as it was but its still there. At PT they advised me to hold off running for a little while longer. I am left wondering what will happen first. Will I be able to run or will I end up going completely insane instead of holding onto the partially insane label that I usually wear.

Actually its not all bad. I have read many a runners blog where their struggles with injury are much worse than my little hip problem. I can at least sort of, kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel. So in the hope of staying positive here is a few good things that have come out of my down time.

I have because of the nature of the injury been able to cross train like a maniac. Biking (indoors) is fine, pounding away on the elliptical no problem, doing weights sure thing. One good thing about my test run the other day was that I realized that my aerobic fitness level is excellent. Since I need to go to the gym to do cardio my 4 days a week of weights has become 6. I am as strong or stronger now then at any point last year already.

I have also managed to drop 14 pounds of off season weight since the start of January and  gotten my body fat back down to around 10%. For me that means I am in mid season form (except for the actual running). I expect to be a little slow once I can run again but at least I will not be lugging around extra pounds as well.

Here are my February training totals.

Weight Training - 24 workouts -  28hrs
Elliptical - 25 workouts - 23hrs 55 min
Cycle - 25 workouts - 22hrs 13 min
Run - 3 workouts - 2hrs 13 min
Arc Trainer - 20 min

Race Plan Changes
Of course the injury has caused me to have to change a great deal of my spring racing plans. The half marathon I planned to run last weekend was a no go. This saturday I was suppose to run a 5k and that is not happening. Around The Bay (30k) is a couple of weeks away and I see it slowly circling the toilet bowl. I will not be racing it but still hold out some hope of using it as a long run.

The biggest casualty is my plan to try and run a BQ marathon in mid April. No way that is going to happen and once my ultra season starts in May there will be no room to fit in a hard marathon effort.

One thing I have come to realize is that if there is a hell and I end up there I figure it will involve me looking out the window at runners happily prancing along as I grind it out minute by minute on the elliptical machine for all eternity.