Well, that's is just plain coo-coo talk, there is plenty of time for you to heal and "train" for the half. Stop talking nonsense now.
If I were you, and this is just me I would do a lighter lower body ST training and by that I mean using only your body weight. I think that all the heavy lifting is giving you all this injury crap, well except for the frost nip.
There I said it!
As for me, I haven't sign up for the half yet and as far as miles go I have so far for this week about 15 mi.
I'm confused. Why aren't you replying with red ink within the quote?
Coo-coo ca-choo.
Of course, I appreciate your encouragement, and off course I can't possibly expect you to remember my injury and training history, but there's no correlation between the injuries and my lower back strength training. I only started doing (light) squats a month or two ago, and deadlifts last summer, I think. And even there the pounds I'm lifting are pretty light to moderate for a guy my size. I'm not really straining, even on the dead lifts (I'd have to be lifting 300 plus pounds for that). My progress with lifting has always been very gradual, as I appreciate very well the risk for injury that weight-lifting poses. I've never been seriously injured while lifting. I think I've pulled a muscle a bit a couple of times, when I was younger and overly exuberant, always my shoulder blade on dips and always within the first month of getting back into ti, but that's been about it.
Overall, I'm pretty sure strengthening my lower body supports my running. The irony is that I have failed to apply the relaxed gradualist approach I use in weight-lifting to my running. It just seems like I should be able to get up and go.
The MCL I still chalk up to a freak occurrence, but it might possibly be associated with not warming up properly after sitting in the car a lot while driving around running errands that day. In any case, it seems to be behind me, and is no longer a concern.
The ITB strains seem clearly to be caused by sudden jumps in mileage and/or insufficient recovery time and/or taking time off and resuming previous distances without building back up to them again more gradually, a mile per run, and/or running at slower, plodding paces. That is, it's caused by running. My method of taking stretching breaks and running faster paces seems to be working. But the two times it has flared up initially have both been times when I tried to up the mileage, so I'm determined to build up more slowly this time, and prepared to bail on any distance that seems to aggravate it. That's why I can't commit completely to August's half, because I can't be sure 13 miles is within my body's range. I'm pretty sure it is, but only time will tell. I'm definitely not going to run a half if I haven't been able to run 13-14 miles in "training," that is, on at least one of my weekly long runs. I'm not doing any race unless it's going to be fun and comfortable and at a distance I've already run.
In addition to the stretch breaks and faster paces, I've started doing static stretching and mobility exercises/dynamic stretching with ankle weights before my runs, and at the end of each ST session, and I think this helps a lot too. I've also got religious about stretching and rolling several times during the day outside of workouts, to keep things limber and loose. I think this is helping my running, and I know for sure it's also making me feel better in general.
So in sum, I feel pretty confident everything will fall into place with just a wee bit more patience this year. I'm even thinking about entering a 10k in a few weeks if my toes have healed enough and temps are favorable for barefoot running. It's also a question whether my ITB issue will be completely gone by then. It's a similar route to the one we'll be running August. Just have to make sure there's no salt on the road.
Good to hear from you, in any case, as always.
@ Whitelaw, Sorry to hear of the PF symptoms Rick, hope you heal up soon.