No Friday Long Run

I was planning to do a long run today, but without somebody pushing me to do it, I'm wimping out.

Er, I mean, I'm opting to use this as a recovery day. Yeah, that's what I meant.

As I may have mentioned before, I've had some chronic hamstring issues. Sometimes it's a minor irritation, sometimes I just feel tight, and sometimes it hitches up as if something's getting snagged as the leg moves. If I were bionic, I'm sure it would indicate than I need to lube the cables...but as a human, the answer always seems to come down to stretching.

Why is stretching so stinking hard to do? It really wouldn't take that much time out of my day. It's not that painful...in fact, it probably hurts less than running does. I have no problem torturing myself during a workout; so why is it so difficult to make myself bend over to touch my toes a few times a day?

Probably the same reason it's so difficult to avoid pizza. The little devil who sits on my shoulder is always more persuasive than the little angel guy. (Probably because he looks more like Darth Maul.)

Other than eating too much and not doing my stretching, though, I'm living a mostly angelic life these days. I'm planning to do a couple of good bike rides over the weekend, and I'm sure I'll find time to do all the laundry and housekeeping that's been piling up. I'll make sure all my bills are paid, and that all the junk mail gets properly recycled. I plan to make my recovery/taper time as productive as possible -- After all, next weekend will be entirely eaten up by the swim meet, so I can't leave anything to be done during those 3 days. (Especially if I decide to take the time to shave down for the competition. Haven't made up my mind on that yet. What do you think? Darth Maul has a shaved head, and he competed really well (up until that little bifurcation problem, anyway.)

We'll see how it goes. The good news is that the hamstring seems to have benefitted from my decision to eschew running. It's too early to tell if that means it's healing, or if it's just being quiet...biding its time. I'll have to let you know about that later. In the meantime, I think I will try to do a few toe touches.

Wish me luck, and have a great day!

PS. Does anybody know how the Lucy Lawless picture at the top of the page relates to this topic?