Warning Shot

Dear Running Gods,

I know I have no one but myself to blame for being where I am now.  I have forsaken the strength- and cross-training.  I run with bad form and have made no attempt to correct it.  But if you’ll PLEASE get me to the start line in 32 days, I’ll do better–I PROMISE!

Faithfully yours,

Pam

*************************************************************

I’m not down for the count yet.  I feel like this injury was my body firing a warning shot.  My chance to make things right before shit got REAL bad.

Let’s back up a few days, shall we?  When I last left you on Sunday, I was feeling pretty good about things.  I had just run one mile, and I told you it wasn’t painful.  Welllllllll, I spoke too soon.  Just like last Sunday after the half-marathon, the pain got worse as time went on.  I wasn’t quite back at square one, but I was definitely in more pain than I was before I ran.  It was back to where it hurt to walk again.  But I did as I said I would do.  I iced and rested Sunday night and Monday, so by yesterday it felt some better.

I knew had an appointment scheduled with the sports orthopedist (the one I saw almost exactly two years ago for my IT band when I was deep into marathon training) today, so last night I had a brilliant idea:  Run.  Make it hurt.  Make it easy for the doctor to pinpoint where the pain is coming from.  So I ran.  And I ran some more.  And the pain got better.  So I kept running.  And it got even better.  Still there, but better.  So I kept running.  Before I knew it, I had run five miles and I was in less pain than I had been in for over a week. I stepped off the treadmill expecting to feel that familiar stab when my feet touched the ground and… nothing.

Just for good measure, mostly because I know how much biking benefited me last week, I hopped on the spin bike and set it to high resistance and pedaled for 10 minutes.  When I got up, my legs felt like Jello, but there was no pain.  All evening long, no freaking pain.

I didn’t know what to do.  I was so confused.  I fell asleep last night wondering, “Do I keep my sports ortho appointment?  I KNOW it’s not a stress fracture now.  I hate to drive an hour and a half for someone to tell me I’ve strained a muscle.  I’ll cancel.  But then what if I cancel and it starts hurting when I run again tomorrow night?! ARGH!”  I made up my mind to decide in the morning.

Well morning came, and when I got up I felt a twinge.  Nothing anywhere near what I had been feeling though, so I decided to cancel the out-of-town sports appointment and call my local chiropractor.  He got me in this afternoon.  After talking with him about where the pain was, how it came on, etc., he decided I’d benefit from some myofascial release.

If I had known what he was about to do to me, I probably would have climbed out the window when he stepped out of the room while I changed into shorts.

O.

M.

G.

I didn’t know it was possible for a small piece of metal to inflict that much pain upon a person.  He said that’s how we knew it was working.  It’s like taking foam rolling to the next, more excruciating level.  Then he hooked me up to the electrical stimulation thing and was all, “That was fun!  Let’s do it again in a few days!”

I got the green light to continue training, instructions to foam roll the heck out of it, and an appointment for torture session round 2 on Monday morning at 0715.