Hamstring; which reminds me of ham, which reminds me of bacon, which reminds me of Turkey wrapped in bacon.

Tomorrow marks the 3 week anniversary of not running. I've had a dull pain in my hamstring since last March. It didn't start out as a dull pain however. At some point (I'm not exactly sure how I did it) I pulled or possible tore part of my hamstring. I'm no doctor, but at the time I ruled out a tear as I could still walk (you like my diagnosis!). I rested it for one week and then encorporated some running back into my routine.  I massaged, rubbed, rolled, wrapped, and stretched it, hoping it would help. Well, it did help a little. However, it was never back to 100%, but was better. At the time, I decided I would press on with my training schedule and hope for the best during the summer. In that time I completed 1 duathlon (PR!) and 3 Tri's (Oly PR as it was my first and only).
I could always feel that dull pain in the left hammy and knew it wasn't going away, so I decided 3 weeks ago I would give it the proper rest it deserves. It's been hard to not run because the fall weather the weeks before last week were wonderful. I've stayed true and have been just working on upper body strength and core lately. I've had to look up a lot of different workouts to keep me interested and motivated as lifting weights is not something I've enjoyed doing in the past. I've loosely followed a pushup routine on hundredpushups.com and incorporated different exercises to strengthen my arms, shoulders, chest, and back. I have to admit that I sometimes get bored doing weight training, but it has made me a more disiplined individual. By that I mean that I have to have a "game plan" going in to weight training, whereas in running, I only had a couple of options (sprints, tempo, or easy runs). Most of my "training" takes place during my lunch hour at work, so I don't have a lot of time to think of the workout I'm going to do. I try and have my weekly workouts planned out in advance. Not down to the smallest detail, but at least an idea of the area that I'm going to work on each day (arms, core, chest, etc.). I try and at least work out for 35-40 minutes Monday-Friday and have usually taken the weekends off. That will change once I start "training" for 2011 events and need one of the weekend days for a long run, ride, or swim. Regardless of what sort of workout I do, I keep track of it in my Trapper Keeper. I'll get into that in another post.