Friday, October 10, 2008

So Nasty I Like It

I had forgotten just how nasty the weather here can be in October. Today was a classic Juneau autumn day. About 40 degrees, cloud level at about 700 feet, winds gusting to 40mph, and a steady rain the entire day. And the forecast says it's supposed to get quite a bit worse before it gets better. In most places this would be one of the worst days of weather all year, but here it's just kind of another October day.

This weather sucks, but in a weird way I kind of enjoy it. It adds a little humor to an otherwise humorless few hours out training. Not to mention that I kind of like the fact that I can run anywhere, even the most popular trails, and be pretty much guaranteed that I won't see anyone.

I got in a nice workout today (13 miles running, 8 miles biking, and an hour of weights), but for some reason my lower back has really been bothering me for almost two weeks now. It gets very stiff when I'm inactive such that it then takes some serious time to get moving. When I went out running today I thought I was going to have to take the day off but then when I got moving the pain slowly went away until finally, for the first time all day, it didn't hurt at all. I'm assuming that it's fine for me to be running since the pain goes away when I run, but if anyone has any ideas or information about this I would really appreciate it. I've had some minor back soreness in the past but it's always been brought on by a specific incident (too much snow shoveling, too much wood splitting, etc.) whereas this time it just started to hurt out of nowhere.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmm, could be weeks of sleeping on couches, on the ground, etc. could be you're just getting old. or I just saw this thing on the health channel where this girl had contant back pain and tried to get rid of it by building up her stomach muscles and when it didn't go away in 10 or so years, she went to the doctor and had 2 feet of her intestine removed- you could try situps or stretching for a year or so. :) ...its probably just stress.

Bob O. said...

Get loose. What I mean is keep your hip flexors loose. Tight hip flexor will cause back pain. Stretch them regularly when you aren't training.

Anonymous said...

I often have back pains but if I do a couple of days with 5-10 min of core strength it subsides. I've heard the core muscles can atrophy which then can't support the vertibre.

sara said...

I'd agree with the first comment about couches, etc... or maybe it was the long drive. Hours in a car could make your back hurt.