What with that “M.D” after my name and all…
To resume our saga, last Sunday we left our intrepid heroine toeing the 10K start line, having beaten all the alarm clocks in the house into submission.
Actually she wasn’t toeing it at all. She was deep in the bowels (so to speak) of the pack, surrounded by 994 other crazy nutjob runners.
No, actually she was only deep in the bowels about 894 other crazy nutjob runners while another 100 or so ambled up to the start line TEN MINUTES LATE. Meh?? I’ll get them all alarm clocks with magic buttons that slither from side to side. I’m up at the witching hour, who slept in? I’m taking names, I’ll be calling you all Sunday after next. Listen for that phone to ring, 3:59am, ring ring ring 4:00am, ring ring ring, I got your back. You two loyal followers can help me with the calls.
This morning was the Women Run/Walk graduation 5K and I was up at 3:45 (after waking several times during the night to worry I’ve forgotten something) (which I did. No big, just only all the safety pins for all the bibs…I told the ladies, run holding the bib up in front of you. There were skeptics. Fortunately we found a box of pins from a race last November in the bottom of Johncharles’ car under several items of race wear, a blanket, some dog hair and 12-15 empty Burger King bags.)
But – I was up. Quickest way to get on my list? Be late for a race without good cause. There was a train wreck or you won the lottery and stopped at the bank to get cash to share with me, I’m completely understanding. But you just didn’t plan to wake up in time to actually drive a car, park it, and find a start line? Next week we’re starting the race on time and you’ll need to jump out of the way and then go cross the start mat once we’ve all passed you. DODGE BALL! RUN! Bwaaahahahaha 10K FOOTBALL! We’ve got the ball and you’re in the way of the goal! OOOPS! Tackle 10K!
It’s probably not very obvious that I haven’t run since last Sunday. I biked Wednesday. I thought about biking this afternoon but for some reason I’m tired. It’s weird. It’s like I was up half the night or something.
Last Saturday I woke and as I usually do, immediately wondered what day it was and what I needed to do. Ah. Saturday 🙂 my off day, I don’t have to run. Sunday I did the 10K. The first two miles were awesome, my legs felt fresh, I was hitting my pace and better, lungs were open – I was running and it felt like it used to feel. End of Tunnel! I see the Light! And at mile 4 it fell apart. By mile 5 I was walking all the uphills while my hamstring pinged like a bad harpist with a hangover. I limped across the finish line and gave up. I’m just going to have to back off for a while unless I want something a bit more serious to stop me.
Now every morning I wake and think, what day is it? and I realize no matter what day it is, I’m not running. Now I want to run.
BeckyB is on the DL list, too – she sprained her ankle at the race Sunday. It’s a bit better and she met me Wednesday to bike. She said, “OMG!!! I’mma gonna kill something! How did I handle stress before I exercised?!?!” She has a point. My head is about to blow and while I can come up with a bucket list of things that are some type of issue, the real issue is … me.
It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better because with the help of Dr. Google and some input from Killer and Our Lady Queen of Pain I’m mostly pretty certain I probably have a hamstring strain. I could go to the Dr., who, unless he felt the need to get some kind of MRI or something would probably diagnose by symptoms and come to the same conclusion: Rest, ice, stretch, exercise the supporting muscles, blahblahblahblah. Hubs most sincerely insisted if I wanted to go see an Ortho I should; he did a few years ago with his hammie and guess what they had him do? Rest, Ice, Stretch, Exercise the supporting muscles…
Are you a runner? I bet no one ever has suggested that a good thing to do is rest, ice…
Are you a runner? I bet you stretch, exercise supporting muscles…
Right? yeah, right. All we want to do is RUN! dammit.
So, so far that’s what I’ve been doing: RICE. It’s mostly OK unless I move the wrong way. This morning I ran over to the finish line for something and realized quickly that I needed to stop, now it’s not too happy but at this point I don’t actually give a sh*t what it thinks, I’m tired of it. Guess what I’m doing?
Sitting on ice.
Run. Dog. Cat. Cat. Me. 