My journey as a marathoner...

I had an X-ray on Monday in Westford. Dr.Sigma said that there really wasn't anything that he could pinpoint from the pictures. He thinks my SI joint might be a little out of place. Today I went to Nashua, where I had an MRI performed. I will meet with Dr.Sigma on Friday to discuss the results of the test. On another note, I saw my chiropractor yesterday, Dr.Pete , who also happens to be a very good friend of mine. He worked on me and then gave me a couple of exercises that will help strengthen some muscles around the SI joint and improve my running mechanics. I have a lot of confidence in Dr.Pete's work because he has fixed many of my past injuries. I will continue to see him until the end of the season. Looking ahead, Coach G has also signed me up for the Penn Relays 5k also (in addition to the Mt.SAC 5k). I am going to test out my hips on Thursday with an easy solo workout. If everything goes right, I will join the team for another workout on Tuesday. If Tuesday's work...

That's the title of Keith Kelly's blog . For those who don't know Keith, he's a very talented Irish and a Providence College graduate. He won the 2000 NCAA XC title in one of the fastest times on the course in Iowa. I first remember him running at Franklin Park in one of my first visits to the park to check out this new sport called "XC". I lived right behind the park and had no idea about the sport. Keith has been up and down with injuries for about 6 years since graduation. This year Keith was back on fire, winning the Irish XC title and qualifying for the World Champs. Unfortunately , he got a knee injury that has kept him out since. What I admire most about this guy is not his talent as a runner, but his ability to stay focused for 6 years injuries after injuries to come back strong and keep his faith in training. His tite of "fitter, happier and more productive" got me thinking. I did some research of my own to find out whether coming back from ...

Coach took me off the workout sheet, probably a good choice by him because I cannot do any strides, hurdle drills or anything explosive. I am all about my drills and when I can’t do them I don’t feel good about my training. On the brighter side, I can run with manageable pain, which is better than no running at all. For now I am going to slowly try to get in as many miles as possible without aggravating the hip. I will be getting an x-ray soon to see what’s going down there with this hip. It’s been a little over 3 weeks and I don’t think a bruise lasts more than a few days. My best hope is by April 4th to at least start doing some sort of strides and then the next week run a test race at George Davis to decide whether or not I will be healthy enough to go to Mt.SAC. Unless I am feeling 100%, I am not going there to embarrass myself and waste the school's money. That's all I got for today.

Just like life, running is full of up and downs. This indoor season, I made huge improvements over the mile-3k-5k. I was able to run prs of 4:07-8:09-14:05 while still training really hard. In addition, I helped bring many of my teammates to nationals by helping them in the DMR and on top of that I won my first ever New England title in the 3k. Great times, happy times, many congrats and this and that. I pretty much thought I could do anything I put my mind into when it came to running. I didn't even think I had given all my effort in those races. Two weeks before the national meet, I fell on my long run and hurt myself badly. I wasn't able to finish the 5k at nationals and came back to Lowell empty handed. Its hard to believe, I had top 5 times in the mile, 5k and DMR, yet I come back to Lowell still limping. and empty handed. It's been 3 weeks since the fall and I still have pain in my hip. I took many days off because some days it hurt too much to even walk. Now finally ...

hello hello....my name is ruben sanca, I am a senior at umass lowell, just 40 min north of boston. I'm going to use this blog to keep an accountof my training and daily life during these last few months as a college student. I had a blog on Trackshark.com but the site just shut down and I decided to move here. This is a little easier to post stuff. I always like to hear comments and I will answer questions if asked.