I will be the first to admit that I am stubborn.
I can’t take all of the credit for it though, I got it from my Dad. My Dad gave me his love of country music, his competitive spirit, his athleticism and his stubbornness. You gotta take the bad with the good right? And in all honesty being stubborn is a bit of a family tradition. EVERYONE on my Dad’s side of the family is stubborn. You should see us when we all get together!
In honor of being stubborn, I should confess that I may have “injured” myself at the Tough Mudder. I say “injured” because I can’t pinpoint what or when exactly it happened but I know that ever since the Tough Mudder my back and my left knee have been hurting. Hurting to the point that it brought me to tears during a run last week. Common sense would say to back off from running and give my body a rest. And if it were you asking me for advice, I would tell you just that, let you body recover. But I don’t like to rest. I like to run. And when I am being told I can’t run, even if it is by my own body, I am determined to run even more. For me running is more than exercise, it is the one thing that I can do that keeps me mentally strong. No other form of exercise has that same effect on me. I NEED to run.
In retrospect, running my impromptu half marathon just a couple weeks before the Tough Mudder was probably not the greatest of ideas. I had no taper week before the half and no rest week after the half. I was after all, training for the Tough Mudder. Perhaps that is what did me in. But I got a PR!!!!
I ran again this past Sunday. A short and easy 3 miler. The first half was pain free but the second half was mildly painful. And then when I woke up the next day I was in full fledged pain again. And of course I tried to run, but only made it a half mile before I gave up and jumped onto the elliptical. Being a runner who all of a sudden can’t run is very demoralizing. Ugh! So I finally caved. I have not ran since Monday. I have done other types of workouts that are low impact. But not running. I’ve also been doing lots of icing, stretching, taping and foam rolling.
I’m crossing every body part that I have that I can get back to some sort of a normal running routine next week. Hopefully the running Gods will be smiling on me again very soon! As a side note, I feel very badly for the people that have had to endure my crankiness for the past week or so. I promise I will be back to normal as soon as I can run again!
How do you cope with not being able to run?
