Sunday Morning in the Trails

AM: 90 mins.
12 miles
PM: Excruciating massage

Since yesterday's workout was pretty lengthy, I was able to dial things back a bit on Sunday. I spoke with Jim and Meredith last night about meeting me, and they were 75% in but thought they might want to sleep in for a day. Meredith said she'd call me by 7:15am (15 mins. before our scheduled meeting time) if they were going to bail. When I arrived at the Cochran Shoals parking lot around 7:25 I still hadn't received a call, so I decided to jog around for a few minutes and then meet them back at the lot. I checked my phone at 7:30 and saw I'd had a missed call from then a few minutes earlier...not a good sign. I waited until 7:35 and then resigned myself to the prospect of running alone.

I decided to do a loop and a half on the dirt path and then head up into the wooded trails to kill some time. I was about two miles into the run when I saw Jim approaching from the other direction. Turns out he and Meredith has arrived just a few moments after I left Cochran Shoals and decided to split up and each run a different direction around the loop in hopes of catching me. Jim and I turned around and met Meredith about a half mile back, then continued into the trails for the rest of the run. I was pretty much thrilled to see them, as I was feeling tired and slow from my Columns Drive workout and wasn't stoked about grinding this out solo.

That said, the run still felt fairly hard, as we were back in the hilly and technical trails for most of it. Fall has definitely, well, fallen around here, and the multicolored leaves that now carpet the ground are quite pretty. Unfortunately their presence necessitates paying extra close attention to where you're putting your feet, as it's now easier than ever to overlook a stray rock or root that's in your path. The absolute last thing I need at this juncture is to twist an ankle. Luckily this wasn't an issue today, and I thoroughly enjoyed running and catching up with my friends.



In the afternoon I headed to Massage Envy for my first session with Michael, who specializes in cranio-sacral massage. Basically he thought that my hamstrings were constantly tight because of issues with my lower back, which is plausible, and so he did a series of techniques designed to balance out my spinal fluid or something. Apparently my sacrum was stuck in the extended position, which is not a good thing, so he tried to relax it back to how it is supposed to be. Then he explored my hamstrings and quads and had a jolly time breaking up all the myofascial tears. I just tried not to cry, as it was extremely painful. He seemed quite pleased with his work by the time we were finished and I signed up for another session next Sunday before leaving for MCM.