A New Chapter Begins with some familiar feelings

What a whirlwind ride of a summer filled with many ups and some unexpected but always inevitable downs. As you know the summer began with my trip to Park City, Utah to train a live like a professional runner, with nothing on the daily schedule expect to run, run, and maybe run again. Also as you know at the tail-end of that trip I received the news that I was in fact accepted into the MSc PT program at McMaster university. From Park City I was back home in Thornhill, ready to take on the competition at a slew of races in the coming months, as well as graduate Summa from York University. In those few weeks I won 5 out of 7 races setting a new PB in each distance the 5k, 10k, and half marathon. Also in the final race of the season I met a few runners from McMaster's cross country/track team. One of whom, Gabriel, invited me to come live with he and a few other athletes at McMaster in the fall. After that race training had a new focus, a new rhythm to it. Instead of building to 240 kilometers and running the marathon in fall where I was hoping to run in the 2:26 range, it was all about cross country. I did 160-170 kilometer for 3 or 4 straight weeks with no problems. Lots of speed work on the track to regain and ingrain that fast leg turnover into my legs necessary for competing with the best in the country. Then after one track workout on a rainy day encompassing a tried and true workout - mile repeats - a little niggle that I had in my right tibia a couple days earlier became an o so serious and too familiar problem. The exact same pain I felt in my leg before Around the bay in March. The next morning I had trouble putting full weight on my leg, and decided instead of just running through it as I did in March I would take the time off now. I took 5 days off completely from running, and then eased back into it with very short runs. The leg was still a uncomfortable. But I figured with cross country season closing in, I couldn't wait another week or two, so I kept running. In my second week back things started progressing quickly. I could feel my leg getting better and even did a tempo run without much issue. In my third week back progress slowed and I could feel regression. The leg was now not getting really any better from day to day, infact after a harder run midweek it felt much worse and I had no pop no explosion off the ground from that leg. Then off to McMaster. Boy the trails hear go forever with beautiful views throughout, and it frustrates me even more why in the world I keep getting injured. I thought my progression was perfect and training methods were even better. I was running in shoes with more cushion, and a couple runs a week running on soft surfaces. Makes me wonder how your muscles and heart, both literally and figuratively, can be so strong and your bones be so weak. With so much motivating factors surrounding me now such as great trails, and great fellow runners, I am constantly reminded of how I'm not able to train how I want and need in order to be competitive. But I've bounced back from injury before and I will once again, this time however, I need to  do so very quickly. Today is the 6km Time Trial to make the team. Boy o boy are there some scary fast runners here, and if I wasn't injured i would be so excited to test my speed against them. Word is most are planning to do the opening kilometer in 2:40. When I'm limping to campus day after day it seems that a 2:40 kilometer may be too rich for my blood. So the plan may be to be content being in the second pack for now and hope to just make the team running maybe 19:20ish for the 6km. So say a prayer for me at 6:30 tonight that I can run and make the team, hopefully without completely breaking my leg in the process. I'll update you all on Saturday.