Trying to Find the Bright Side to Being Injured.

As you may recall from my previous post, right around mile 21 of MCM, I started feeling some pain in my lower back on the left side and could not walk without pain after the race. When I got home I went in to see Dr. Tom Fletcher about the pain and he started Active Release Therapy right away and diagnosed me with spraining my SI joint.

Fast forward two weeks and I am still in pain. While I have still been able to maintain my run streak of one mile a day, those miles have been slow and painful and have sometimes resembled hobbling more than running. Both Dr. Fletcher and I thought I would be close to 100% within two weeks, and here I am still hurting.

 

I have big running goals. First of which is to qualify for Boston. I have never been this fast or this close to a BQ, so I want to work really hard over the winter to get faster and stronger to achieve that goal. I can't afford to go backwards. I need to keep moving forward and this injury (even though its only been two weeks) has depressed me. 

 

I have struggled keeping a positive attitude. One minute I feel hopeful, and the next I feel defeated. I know I am healing. I can now put  weight on my left leg with little to no pain, but walking and running is still painful and this is when I start wondering if I have done something worse than Dr. Tom and I first thought. This scares me and makes me crazy.

 

Weekends at home when I am not racing can be lonely and boring. It's the one time I really wish I didn't live alone and yesterday I got pretty depressed looking on Facebook and seeing friends out running, racing and achieving their goals, while I can't run more than 1 1/2 miles. My Saturday felt gloomy and it was only 8:30am!

 

I decided to not wallow in the pity party and while I could not run my kick ass long run, or race with friends, I could still work towards the goals I have.

 

First thing I did was hit the gym. After my slow one mile run, I went to the gym and hit the elliptical for 45 minutes, then worked on getting stronger by doing some upper body and core work. Both will help me when running.

 

Second thing I did was head over to Wasatch Running Center to speak to Darrell Phippen. Darrell has agreed to help me put together a Boston training plan. He is strict and if I follow his plan and work hard, I feel confident I will achieve my goal. 

 

Third thing I did was buy new running shoes. While at Wasatch Running Center, I also spoke to my friend Melissa (who works there). I really needed new shoes (my guess is my old shoes may have contributed to my injury), but with my car tags due at the end of the month, I really did not want to spend $160 on shoes. Since the Asics Gel Nimbus 16's came out, she gave me a really great price on the 15's!

 

I left the store feeling like while I couldn't run as far as I would have wanted, I still got a workout in, made a plan, and bought the tools to help me achieve that plan once I heal.

 Excuse the salty language, but this says it all!

 

The fourth thing I did was look forward to all the great opportunities I have in the next few months:

1) I have been invited to speak on the Blogger's forum at the Route 66 Marathon in Tulsa, OK in two weeks;
2) Going to Memphis to run the St. Jude's Marathon. 

3) I am working hard and looking forward to the Marathon Maniacs/Half Fanatics double reunion in January;

4) I got a spot on the Marathon Maniac pace team for the Louisiana Marathon the week after the reunion and;

5) I will run my first 50 miler in February!

 

My focus now is to keep doing what Dr. Tom tells me to do so I can heal. If I do that, I have a lot to look forward too. I just need to keep my mind free of negative thoughts and replace them with positive hopeful thoughts. If I can't run, I can still do other things that will help me achieve my goals.

 

Dr. Tom torturing me, I mean helping me!