Set back

So last week I had my first real training set back. Despite my horrid asthma flare a few weeks ago, it did not sideline my training because I was put on steroids so quickly to manage it. Two weeks ago I was able to run 20 minutes. I felt like I was going to die for the last five, but I powered through and made it the full twenty. I have pretty much been adding five minutes onto my running time each week. This is my way of pushing myself harder and harder. I am also increasing my speed slowly. Now don't get me wrong, I am still hovering in the 15 minute mile range, but now it is a true 15 minute mile versus a 15 1/2 minute mile.

So imagine my surprise last week when I jumped on the treadmill and I struggled to run for ten minutes. Ok, maybe struggle is a bit much, 10 weeks ago struggle would have been the understatement of the century, but realistically it was difficult. My legs felt funny, my air flow felt off, all in all I just didn't feel right and pushing myself to do more was not an option because I was done at 10 minutes. As I worked out more throughout the week I found that I was able to get back into a rhythm of running 10 minutes and then walking and then running again. To get my butt back into gear, I shortened my walking time to 3 minutes instead of my usual five, and worked on running 10, waling 3, running 10. I was able to make my goal and felt much better about myself and my running.

But still I am wondering why I had the set back in the first place? Is it just a part of the training process or is something else going on? When I look back at the past few weeks I realized a few things have changed: Over the past three weeks I have had a new round of euflexxa shots to my right knee to help to lubricate the joint and eliminate or at least hold off the need for knee replacement surgery. For those of you who don’t know what euflexxa is, it is a series of three shots of a thick jelly like material injected into the joint space in the knee. Let me tell you, it hurts! Usually the last one hurts the worst, but this time, all of the shots did not seem as bad as last time. Maybe because I knew what to expect, who knows. Anyway back to my training issues… I was also recovering from my asthma flare. Over the past few months I have started a shot immunotherapy for my asthma and have had to add a second inhaled steroid medication to my daily meds, so that I did not have to spend more than the 14 days I had already had on oral steroids. Those things make me seriously bitchy. And then I realized that while I had worked out in some way several times over the past week, I didn’t run. Well if that is the key I better keep running for the rest of my life or else I will be sidelines back to 10 minute runs again. And while I have not started my run workout for this week, I am feeling better about things. Hopefully I will be back to 20 minutes soon and then blowing right past it. Only time will tell.