Tuesday, September 15, 2009

If the side of the road could talk...

Don't you just love to see what on the side of the road while you're running? There's always something interesting that gets you thinking and as we all know... there's plenty of time for thinking on those runs. Of course there's the masses of road kill that I end up leaping over. And there's plenty of garbage. But I love the various shoes and socks that I have seen, never a pair of course. But doesn't it make you wonder how in the world they ended up there? I envision a kids throwing it out the window and the mom too mad to go back and get it. Or it being left outside on a summer night and a dog takes off with it and leaves it miles away. I've seen caulking guns, and garbage of every kind, but my favorite from the last couple of weeks has to be a bike seat. I see a bike seat off to the side of the road and think it's weird but it gets better. A few hundred feet later I see the bike from which it came off of. Which left me thinking about how that seat fell off and the rider somehow rode that bike at least a little while longer in some very uncomfortable position until finally ditched the whole effort. I wish I knew the real story behind some of the weird things that I see on the side of the road. What strange objects have you seen?
I ran my last 20 miler Saturday with Mel and Heather. It was a slow run, possibly the slowest to date mostly because of me. We stopped a lot to stretch and I tried babying my calves as much as possible. But they pretty much hurt the whole time. And then the last four miles I got some pretty fun cramping happening there. But we made it and now I need to figure out how to fix it before the big day. I went in and got a sports massage and then my chiropractor taped my calves with kinesio tape. He had just returned from a seminar and was happy to practice on me. I hope it helps.

Monday August 31st- 10 miles biking with the trailer
Tuesday Sept. 1st- 8 mile easy run
Wednesday Sept. 2nd- 10 miles biking with the trailer
Thursday Sept. 3rd- 8 mile easy run
Saturday Sept. 5th- 7 mile easy run, 8 mile bike ride

Monday Sept. 7th- 12 miles bike ride
Tuesday Sept. 8th- 5 mile run, calves hurt entire run
Wed. iced the calf on and off all day but it hurt. 5 mile bike ride
Thursday- saw the chiro and had him work both calves really hard
Friday Sept. 10th- 4 mile run, calf did better but I word leg warmers under my pants. I don't know if keeping them warm helps or not but it couldn't hurt.
Saturday Sept. 11th- 20 mile run

5 comments:

B.o.B. said...

Keep up the stretching, icing, massaging, anti-inflammatories, yadda yadda yadda. You'll be fine and have a lot of mileage under your belt. You can do it!

(And thanks for the advice on the kinesio tape. I'll check it out for sure!)

Tall Girl Running said...

I've encountered some disgusting things on the side of the road while running: a headless Barbie doll, a porn magazine and a condom, to name a few. I don't even want to think about how they got there.

I'm sure you're doing everything right to take care of those calves. Now just rest up and let recovery do its magic.

See you Saturday!

Unknown said...

Jen, Can't say I recall finding anything on the road side, but I do recall a particular early morning run. I was with 4 or 5 other runners when we ran past a couple of large men in sweat pants who were completely intoxicated. They pulled their sweats down to their ankles and ran behind us for a 1/2 a block until they fell over with laughter. Weird that! Best of luck to you on Top of Utah (I believe that's what you're running this weekend). Be good to the calf. Rooting for you from afar, Mike

Mel said...

Great post Jen! I did see a pair of green flip flops on Saturday's run and they were on the overpass... really makes you wonder;) You will do great!

Unknown said...

Hi Jen, ? Mike