I RAN! AND IT WAS OK!

So the last I talked about swimming, biking, or running was at the Maple Grove Triathlon 9 days ago. I noted some bad pain that showed up just before the race in my leg and sacrum like I had back in 2013 (which stopped me dead in my tracks after 2-3 miles in a half marathon, and then kept me from running for 3-4 months). I was told it was a sacrum issue that I'd have to deal with for the rest of my life. I was afraid it was back, and I'd have to take the rest of the year off from running.

I had to test it though. It was never as bad as it was back in 2013. I can still recall a few weeks after stopping running in 2013, I tried to jog ONE step across the road as a car was coming. I nearly buckled at the knee because of the pain. Yikes. But it held up with just a minor ache during a swim on Monday.

Wednesday and Thursday were big days on my feet: we went to the State Fair and then to Valleyfair as noted in my last post. Biking to and from the fair was fine.

Saturday was the big test. I actually ran 5 miles with the boys. And it was fine. AND THEN IT WAS FINE STILL THAT EVENING. (That last sentence was the big surprise - after being fine for the race, it then got quite sore that evening and the next day.)

So I'm not out of the woods just yet, but I'm feeling optimistic. After giving it a lot of thought, here are 5 possible issues for why this flared up again. These are the only things that have been different lately:

#1: NEW MATTRESS. We got a new mattress in July. My mid- to lower-back has been sore many mornings since getting it. I started sleeping better after 30 day or so, but I still tried NOT to sleep on my back. (I usually sleep on my side, but I probably sleep on my back 20-40% of the time.) In fact, when we got "fitted" for a mattress at one of the places we shopped, they noted that my pressure points on the bed were the most unusual they've seen - at a soft setting (which I hate) I still had a lot of pressure showing on my butt. On our new bed, my butt feels like it's sinking too much when I lay on my back (and therefore putting a lot of pressure on my lower back). When I mentioned a new bed to my chiropractor, without ANY more details, he said "yeah, once we got a new bed that had too soft of a 'pillow top' and it screwed up my lower back. We had to take it back." Yep, I think that's part of the culprit here. This pain came on from nowhere after an easy week while laying on my back in bed at 2 a.m. Our current bed is going back in a few days before the return window closes, and we have a new bed that will be shipped shortly.

#2: LESS LOWER BACK WORK. My whole core routine as been slipping lately, and I've been doing more and more of it at home. Which means I do it "lazier," and I haven't been doing my lower back exercises as well. I added those back in this week.

#3: LESS ECCENTRIC LEG WORK. When I first had this issue in 2013, Dr. Folske had me start doing eccentric quad work because he noticed a lot of atrophy in my right quad. I stopped doing those back in Jan (approximately) because of a knee issue. I started those back up last week, and I'll keep them back in the routine.

#4: NEW RUNNING SHOES. I got new running shoes about 5 weeks ago. But they are the make/model that I've worn for a few years, so I really don't think that's it.

#5: REST WEEK. I didn't do as many workouts leading up to the start of the back pain because I had a race. I don't think that has anything to do with it.

If I had to rank these according to how harmful each might have been to my back, here's what it would look like:

So we'll have a new bed soon. In the meantime, I'm trying to only sleep on my side. I might try a longer run tomorrow. Hoping the TC 10 Mile is still ON for me.

Back with a training update tomorrow. Happy Labor Day!