I managed to get my long run in for the week, without any back pain. I was supposed to do 13 miles, but undercut it and only did 12.3 miles. I took a wrong turn in Kingston somewhere and got off course, so I made the best of things as I could. I did stop a few times to stretch out, and it seemed to have made the difference. I felt a little shooting pain here and there on my right lower back where the disk was throbbing in my back, but it was nothing consistent. I generally stopped and stretched at those points and it was fine. After I got to mile 7, my lower back didn’t bother me, I just felt the stiffness in my middle-upper back that i’ve been feeling for weeks now. I don’t know what it is, or how to make it go away, but it sucks. It doesn’t hurt, but it does bother me.

For anyone who was brought to my blog because they want to run with back pain, don’t take my story as the bible. I’m certainly taking chances in running with my lower back being sore, but i’ve done this before. I’ve had lower back pain my entire life, I know how to judge it and how to deal with it. You need to assess your OWN back pain, and determine how serious it is, because every case is different. My goal today was to get at least 7 miles in, after that, I always had a turn-around route available in case I had pain. In addition, I ran it slow, and in control. I stopped frequently to stretch mainly my hamstring, because you’ll find that tight hamstrings will cause lower back pain. If you want to see a horror story with my back, read back to the end of November when I ended up overdoing it and in the emergency room. That sucked, and taught me about when to push things, and when not to.

The point i’m trying to make is that back pain is a strange thing, you have to give the initial injury at least 2 days to stop being acute before working it. It is good to work your back, it makes it heal faster, but the secret is trying to find the delicate balance between what is too little and what is too much. You want to make sure you’re having an impact, but also make sure its not too much. I usually started out with some basic crosstraining, just to see how it feels, then a short, slow jog, just to assess things.

Anyway, I missed my mileage by about 3 miles this week, basically due to yesterday, but overall I am satisfied. Tomorrow is Christmas, so I won’t do anything tomorrow and then head back into training on Tuesday.

One last note, the local weather has the potential of a Noreaster heading our way for New Years Eve … usually they are wrong, so it may come early or late, we’ll have to see. The Bloomsburg YMCA 5K is on New Years Eve, so it could be interesting!

Merry Christmas to everyone! Only 13 more weeks until the Ocean Drive Marathon!!!