Chris had said to give it a try. I made my way down to the fitness center to run on the “mill.” I selected the “5K” program, 6.0 mph, and a 1% incline. I began to run, keeping Chris’ caution to run “my pace” to avoid further injury. It felt okay. No, it felt GREAT. I wanted to scream “woo hoo” but didn’t. I just smiled, ran, and thought, “I AM RUNNING.”
Archives for May 2006
In The Slow Lane
Again I woke feeling good, and again I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable as I drove down the freeway in the cracker-jack boxcar. My driving habits have been slightly different since the accident. I have been spending more time in the slow lane since there would be an escape to the shoulder of the road if needed. I’ve been looking in my rear-view mirror A LOT too. Consequently, it takes more time to get anywhere. The more time in the car, the more back pain. I had an appointment with Chris for some therapeutic massage on my back so my route this morning took me to a new freeway ~ which moved a bit quicker than my usual path. It wasn’t very long before I was at my destination.
Inside, Chris had me bend over and commented on how she could visibly see the difference in the two sides of my body. I told her how I could see my spine being pulled to left in the X-rays Dr. H took on Wednesday. She wasn’t surprised. Chris had me move in a few more directions to get a good assessment of where things were at, and then she began to work.
She started out slowly. Gently she moved her hands along the sides of my spine, stopping along the way for a little more attention. After a while Chris was getting in a bit deeper into the muscles. She would ask if it hurt, and I would report back. The truth was, that mostly it felt good. I could feel that what she was doing was having a good effect. We finished up with some stretches and a green light to go running.
Recovering My Losses
I’ve spent the past two days getting used to the fact that I might not be able to run my marathon after the accident. The back pain was lingering and I was fearful that my old disc injury from my last pregnancy my have been awakened. I began calling and emailing to find out my options. Things were not sounding all that good.
Marathon fees: no refund, no transfer of registration.
Airfare: Non-refundable w/$100 charge to re-book within 90 days
Hotel: Cancel by June 1st without penalty
Time and costs of training: lost
I finally saw the doctor on Wednesday. He did an exam, x-rays, and checked my urine to rule out kidney injury. The good news is that nothing is broken. My muscles are in spasm and the effect is that they are yanking on my spine and causing an abnormal curve.
The doctor admitted not knowing enough about marathon running to be able to tell me if I’d be able to run my marathon in June. He said that when I felt okay, that I could give running a try and see what happened. He cautioned to start out slow and stressed the importance of listening to my body. He couldn’t tell me when I would feel okay enough to give it a try. So I walked 1 1/2 miles to pick up YaYa from school. I’m icing and taking 800 mg Ibuprofen. I am going to have some body work done by a sports therapist and see what she thinks about my return to training. After that, I’ll just have to see what happens.
500 D0ll@r Car Wash
I drove past the full service car wash this morning on the way to the freeway. It seems that no matter what time of day it is they are always busy. Don’t those people have to get to work? I was running later than usual. My car pool buddy was traveling so the commute was to take longer than usual. I not only passed on the much needed car wash, but my morning latte too.
Not far down the road, 
I got rear ended. Literally! Traffic was crawling along and some guy decided that he didn’t want to go THAT speed. The only problem was that I was in front of him.
So my Mommy van will finally be washed for the price of my $500 deductible and I am now driving a cracker-jack’s box sized car with manual everything. The car has hand cranks for the windows, the mirror adjustments are totally manual, and you have to push down on each door lock to lock all of the doors. I kept looking for the button to open the floorboard so that I could run along, to move it, like Fred Flintstone. Talk about feeling vunerable; tomorrow’s traffic ought to feel real scary in this thing.
I got through the accident without injury ~ I think. My back was hurting me all day long. Not a lot, but enough to make me go home to lie down. I kept wondering if I was just imagining it. Was I sore this morning when I got up? I don’t think so. If I am really hurt, how will this impact my marathon? Instead of cross-training today, I am eating Rocky Road Ice Cream. Not quite to picture of health that I make myself out to be. Maybe I should at least take the dog for a walk and then get a good night’s rest so I can survive another day of traffic. Fortunately, the car that I am currently driving does not need to be washed.
Sleeping Late
I missed the window to run this morning by sleeping in. Immediately upon waking, at 8:30 a.m., it was time to run the boys around to their games. Tom was out of town so even though BoBo is warming up from 9 to 10, YaYa is with me until I dropped him off at 10:45 a.m. for an 11:30 a.m. game.
Today YaYa got to play on the ?big? field, so it was a pretty special experience for him. The Majors Field is our Little League’s “show case” field with sunken dugouts, and the big LL banner. They had a great time and I video taped a couple of innings. Over at the Juniors Field, the game was moving fast. BoBo?s team took it with a 4:1 win in 1 hour and 45 minutes time.
Missing the window for morning running meant running in warmer weather for me when I finally managed to get my run in. I accidentally hit stop on my Forerunner 205 (GPS watch) sometime in the run and didn’t notice for some unknown distance. I ran somewhere between 7 and 8 miles. I went from really glad to be out running to thinking I’d taken it too fast. I was feeling my legs a bit more than I wanted. It wasn’t exactly the “marathon pace” that Hal had called for; that might have been why my legs were feeling it. The fast pace was just happening and I kept trying to slow up. At the same time I just wanted to get the run done.
Afterward the run, I took the kids to the pool. We swam and played in the pool that I grew up in. The last time that I was at that pool was with my step-dad (a year ago – before he died). The memories came rushing back. Good memories, but it made me sad just the same. Then I swam some laps. My swimming sure has gotten rusty since last summer when I was playing around with some triathlons. I did 1/2 mile (36 laps).