Monday, October 29, 2007

Injured!?

I made it through my Fall running season. I even made it throught a rainy, windy cold marathon that was as the newspaper termed it "on one of the 5 best sleeping in days all year".

Worse than the rain, cold or wind was the fact that my pace was no where near what I wanted to run for that race. I thought it was the cold or the rain--it turns out I was injured. Somehow, maybe out of sheer cussedness, I finished the marathon. I think it really was because I thought that it would take longer for someone to come and get me and take me back to the start than it would for me to gimp on in.

I thought I was tough--maybe I was--maybe I was kind of stupid too. I amaze myself at my capacity for denial when it comes to my own body. I am one of the first people to encourage someone to go to the doctor or PT, but apparently the last to go when it is my own issue.

After the race, I could hardly walk. I knew my feet had issues, I blamed the cold and the miles. I blamed myself and the fact that I missed about 5 runs out of my training schedule.

Basically all the injuries I had been trying to ignore came to their worst during the race. My feet felt horrible, my legs cramped, my piriformis screamed--thankfully the cold was my ally and I couldn't feel much of this during the race. This literally brought me to my knees and I reached out to get help feeling better for my next marathon.

I'm glad to say that finally I'm getting the injury treatment I need. I'm finding help for all of my issues and realized that they had been plaguing me all season if I had bothered to listen. I said that I was tired, or started out too fast--really my body was trying to ask for help.

Often I'm scared to go in for an injury because I think I'm going to be told that I shouldn't run or that I need surgery. I turns out I need some deep tissue massage and orthotics--maybe a heel lift too. I'll write more about the specifics of my injuries on my personal blog later.

I didn't need to tough out my pain, I didn't need to wait, I needed to make an appointment. If you have a nagging pain, something you really don't think is that bad--make an appointment!

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