six weeks to prairie fire. let me introduce you to the 'hot mess' and 'china.'

The good, the bad and the ugly. The good? My training for Prairie Fire isn't going to be interrupted by what I'm about to talk about. The bad? I have a strained hip flexor. The ugly? China has returned to my right calf, making the party going on in my left hip strain that much more fun! SQUEEE!

I spent the morning at physical therapy, being poked, prodded, moved around and grimacing in pain when my PT Doug was trying to figure out what the heck is going on with my leggies. Then I got to go through some nice tear inducing deep tissue work on china (i.e. knotted up calf) and on my hip/booty/IT band. To sum, the left side of my leg is a big ol' hot mess. But based on the beating my calf and left leg got? China and the hot mess doesn't stand a chance now. Fun. Stuff.

Even still, the good news is that I get to keep training and my PT is confident I'll be in great shape to run Prairie Fire. Of course my favorite part was that as I was leaving his office I was all "oh, well that's just prairie fire, i haven't told you my other 'm' plans for the rest of the year"... priceless that look I got. Yes, I have big plans for fall marathons (see my side bar if you're curious now), I'm just gonna heap them on while I'm in shape and ready to roll. Since I'll likely be cutting marathons out of my life for awhile starting next year. But that's a different blog post, more to come there.

For now, I ran 18 miles yesterday, not awful, not great. The miles got run, and at a pace that wasn't what I wanted, but was all I could manage. With my good buddies hanging in at my side, despite me trying to shove them off at a faster pace. This is why we are running buddies, they stuck out my rough run with me the entire time. Keeping me going with a smile on my face and a little laughing thrown in.

The main points I am taking away is that I have to change my training for a bit, as in cutting out speedwork, which I'm okay with. I'm happy with my current paces and I think I'll be fine to run the marathon I want to run without bombarding my body with speedwork. Second is that I have to cut out hot yoga for awhile. It's just too intense on my hip, however I plan to keep regular (non-hot) yoga in my life. Along with some strength training. GUHHHHHH, that's my least favorite!  Apparently when you have a weak booty as a runner? It messes things up, so ST it is. Sigh.

Week 10 Training:
Monday - Hot Yoga
Tuesday - Rest
Wednesday - 4 Easy Miles
Thursday - 6.5 Miles
Friday - Rest (hip pain)
Saturday - Rest (hip pain)
Sunday - 18 Miles, last two at a faster pace (for the most part)

Cheers to another week of running interwebbers, and to the fact that fall weather is a mere few weeks away. Now THAT really is worth a SQUEEEEEE, IMO.