Last weekend was supposed to be my return to fast racing but unfortunately my body had other plans. After a very solid climbing workout last Friday I was excited to toe the line in Frankfurt, KY on July 4th for the Buffalo Trace 5k. This small and intimate race offers great prize money, fast competition, and uniquely loops around the grounds of the famous Buffalo Trace Distillery the entire race. And Esther was going to be meeting me in Kentucky for the race so I was very intent on making it to the starting line!
But after my Friday workout my hamstring never settled down and I was faced with a tough decision. Even after a good long run with George on Sunday, where I felt the hamstring nearly every step but not in an alarming way, the tightness only worsened. After opting out of my Tuesday pre-race workout I got a light massage Wednesday which seemed to only anger the hamstring more!
Stubbornly I took 1 day off in the hopes that it would clear up and then made the drive down to Kentucky to meet Esther anyway. But after speaking to Pete we decided it made very little sense to run the race. Not starting a race is always a difficult decision as I have taken pride in being very present on the racing scene since I arrived at ZAP, but racing was simply out of the question.
I quickly turned my attention to cheering on Esther and ZAP teammate Sarah Porter on July 4th. The weather was muggy and the course had lots of turns but Esther ran a very smart race and came away with the victory and $3,000 payday in 16:31. Sarah ran the last race of her long season and nabbed 3rd place.
Although it would have been better if I was fighting it out for the win on the men’s side, I was very excited and proud to watch Esther pull away in the late stages of the race and beat some very good women. She is certainly rounding into form nicely as Beijing and the IAAF World Championships loom.
I plan to take the next week or so very easily and get as much treatment as I can. I will be running the US 20k Championships in September and the Twin Cities Marathon in October so my goal is to simply get healthy so I can have a healthy build up for those big races…and then the Olympic Trials will be here before I realize it.
Thanks for reading!
With the CHAMP!
Here is my last week of training (6/28-7/4):
Sunday: AM: 15 miles PM: walk
Monday: AM: 7 miles PM: 6 miles
Tuesday: AM: 9 miles
Wednesday: OFF
Thursday: AM: 5 miles PM: 3 miles
Friday: AM: 5 miles PM: ART/massage treatment in KY
Saturday: AM: 7 miles
Total: 57 miles, 8 runs
Check out more from Cole on his blog here!