Very happy to be back on track this week after 3 weeks of resting my strained groin. I have had no issues with the groin this week and all is looking good.

It has been a fairly easy week, consisting mainly of slower, easier runs to ease back into it without over stressing the groin area.

I am being very diligent with my weekly strengthening exercises along with incorporating massage and sometimes a little rolling on the roller.

Reflecting on the tightness issue I’m thinking that it primarily came from the leg muscles being worked harder than they ever had, and therefore tightening occurred as a result of this.

My leg just need time to adapt to this type of training and therefore massaging any knots or tightness from my legs seems to be the solution.

Up till a few days ago I had decided to not enter the Cascais Trail Experience of 31km. But with the convenience of being held in the town that I live I have decided to compete.

As this is less than 2 weeks away I will be running the race very conserving. I need to be smart about this as I have more important races coming up and cannot afford anymore time off with injuries.

This will be hard for me as I am naturally very competitive.

But I have looked at the course on the website and I am confident if I run it at a conservative pace I will be fine.

To make sure I run at the right pace I will run about half of the course prior to the event to work out what pace ( minutes/kilometres) will be comfortable for me. Once I know this I will start the race at this pace and run my own race without getting involved with racing other competitors.

I will increase the kilometres and total elevation gain next week. Closely monitoring the area around my groin and regularly massaging the area.

The following week which will be race week will be similar as I will have a few lighter days leading up to race day, but will not worry about tapering as this is not an important event for me.

Also I will not be racing hard, it will be more like a solid training run.

Like I said this will be hard for me, but I have to be smart.

Until next week,

Happy Running,

Andrew