Good enough for me!

Ah yes, ’tis been many weeks since my last update. That was a bad day. I shouldn’t have blogged and the next day I regretted it…but I think it would have said more had I deleted the post. Recovery is what it is, and sometimes it just doesn’t meet expectations…even if you think you’ve set those expectations very low.

So here I am.  As of last Sunday I’ve added a 10K notch to my racing belt, and to say it’s been an interesting journey back from total inactivity would be an understatement.  I remember when I quit my job a year and a half ago (good grief, has it really been that long?) one of my goals was to figure out who I was.  When I left my job, I felt defeated. I felt weak. All of the things I loved about myself in my 20s were gone by my mid-30s. Questionable choices combined with fears instilled in me during childhood created this perfect storm that threatened my marriage and my sanity. Think I’m exaggerating, being overly dramatic?  Talk to Capt. UberHusband.

And then I found running. Then I got injured. I came back. Then I got injured again. Can someone please cut me a break?  I get that all good things in life are won after great struggle, but enough is enough!  Now though, at the end of this injury cycle…I’m feeling good. Things that are supposed to ache in fact ache, and things that shouldn’t be aching aren’t.  This is good.

It’s always easy to play Monday morning quarterback.  I spent four months trying to identify What I Did Wrong, and I’m no closer to an answer now than I was in January.  Instead of looking back and trying to figure out what I did wrong, I’m now thinking it’s actually easier to just take what you actually know and move forward. Having said that…what did I learn?

I Need to Lighten the Hell Up

I took running way too seriously, much in the same way I take other things in my life. I take pride in not being terribly competitive with others (tough to do at my pace anyway), but I was super-competitive with myself. I have  limits which can be pushed, but I don’t need to push them with brute force. I didn’t wear a watch on Sunday’s 10K, and had no idea what my time was until I was a couple hundred yards from the finish. Funny how not micromanaging my performance minute-by-minute, mile increment by mile increment, actually made for a more enjoyable race.

I Can Be Patient!  Well, Sort Of

Nothing will test your patience quicker than being at home, alone for the most part, on crutches. Capt. UberHusband was out of town for work the vast majority of the time after my stress fracture was first diagnosed. When he was home it was a Godsend…he was able to help me clean and shop, but I was on my own a lot.  It was winter. It was grey, cold, and depressing. We got between 5 and 9 inches of snow on three separate occasions. I have two dogs who, I swear, seemed to need to go outside every fifteen minutes…usually as soon as I’d just finished the 5-minute ordeal of transporting a meal from the kitchen to the living room. :)

I could list a hundred things that every day tested my patience with myself. I wasn’t terribly graceful with it at first…I’m used to being able to do things when I want to do them, the way I want to do them.  I’d like to think my fuse is a lot longer now than it was last year.

Things are starting to fall into place. I tried to force them into place a couple of years ago, and that didn’t work out. Things seem to work out for us if we’re patient. I don’t really like the whole fatalistic approach to life, but sometimes you just have to let things emerge and quit trying to micromanage your life.

Speaking of letting things just emerge…ahem…Capt. UberHusband and I were thisclose to selling the house, packing everything up, and moving to the Seattle area. It’s no big secret we’ve been thinking about it for a very long time (since 2004, to be exact) but it’s a big move and we needed to wait for the planets to align and for it to be The Right Time. We thought now was the right time, going so far as to get our house evaluated by a realtor.  We were ready to put the big For Sale sign in the ground in the next couple of weeks.

But…

I had this nagging feeling we shouldn’t be going. I should have been thrilled we’d made the official decision to move, because I sure was thrilled with the abstract idea of it.  Turns out that wasn’t the case. That nagging feeling got naggier, and the more I tried to ignore it and chalk it up to moving jitters, the more I realized the square peg just wasn’t going to fit into the round hole.  Turns out CU had the same nagging feeling, so we put the brakes on the move and are staying put.  I’m old and wise enough to know that my gut has never steered me wrong, and that this was more than just simple jitters.

So dat would be where we are right now. Also planning a trip up to NYC in a couple of weeks…and hoping the third time’s the charm and I can actually run in Central Park this time. The last two times I’ve headed up there I’ve been injured. I WILL OVERCOME!

After many, many weeks of waiting to be told officially that I can start running again (unofficially, I snuck in a few test runs)…my doctor gave me the go-ahead this morning.  I told him I was up to walking 3, 4, and 5 miles without any pain…just ancillary hip and adductor tightness which went away after post-walk stretching.  I started yoga several weeks ago and have gotten back into touch with my foam roller.  I’m pretty sure my stress fracture was caused by tight hips and adductors.  It makes sense, knowing what I know now about the physiology of pelvic stress fractures and my old training habits.

My doctor said again to let pain be my guide, but to not jump right back into running ten miles a day…or a week.  Some soreness is expected; after all, there are a lot of cobwebs to clear out. If I have pain though, I’m to immediately cease all running and fitness walking for two weeks.  If I’m good, I can ease back in.  If I’m not, then I go back to see him and…well…we won’t think about that.

So, hooray…right?

When I got back home from my appointment I was elated.  Like I said, I’ve run a little over the past couple weeks but I felt like I was sneaking around my doctor’s back, running without permission. It may sound silly, but I needed that official “OK” to check off that part of my recovery and move on.  After I changed clothes I did 15 minutes of warm-up stretching, and then headed out. The plan was to walk 3/4 of a mile, run/walk 1 1/2 miles, and then walk the last 3/4 of a mile. I’m sure people have varying opinions on whether or not that particular mix was a good idea , but I’ve become pretty attuned to what my body can and can’t do and what it will and won’t tolerate.

Of course, that plan was shot all to Hell when I got out on the road and I wound up run/walking pretty much the whole thing. I felt good, though. My former conditioning, that which it was, left quite a bit to be desired. I suspect it would have been a horrible run had I not been logging so many miles walking over the past month.

As I read this, I do realize it sounds like I’m…unhappy. Isn’t that odd?  When I finished up I stretched for another 20 minutes, drank a ton of water, logged my run into DailyMile and then thought…that’s it?  I’m not sure what I was expecting. FINALLY! After 3 1/2 months I can run without pain! Smiles! Butterflies! Puppies!

Honestly though…I was rather “meh” about it.  Before my injury my long run per-mile times weren’t a whole lot faster than the speed I’m currently walking.  I’ve developed a real love for walking over the last six weeks and interestingly…it was a huge deal to go for my first 5-mile run/walk last year, but I did pretty much the same thing last weekend and didn’t give it a second thought.

I really did not expect to feel such a…letdown today.  In retrospect, I sort-of wish I had just walked the whole thing…not because I wasn’t ready to run (I have no idea if I really am or not), but because I enjoy walking that much.  I was so itchy to get back into running and now that I can, it’s not as interesting as it was. I’ve been getting just as great of benefits out of walking, without nearly the impact on my body.

It would be great to talk to other people who’ve been off for a few months and hear what their foray back into running was like.  I have no idea if this sort of post-layoff ambivalence is expected, or if when all is said and done…I’m supposed to be walking those half-marathons instead of running them.

Ah yes…the updates are few and far between, but that’s good. No one wanted to hear the minutiae involved with a healing stress fracture.  Hell, half the time I’m pretty sure Capt. UberHusband wasn’t interested but alas, that is one of his legal obligations as Husband.

My last update was three weeks ago, so I’m halfway through the intermediate stage of my recovery…otherwise known as Purgatory. It isn’t awful, but it isn’t bliss.  I added a DailyMile badge over in the sidebar and as you can see, I’m making marked progress in my walking. I’m up to a good couple of miles before things start to get a little achy, but even then it isn’t the pain I had before. Achy is fine.  Sharp, stabby pain is not.

When I was on my walk today, I decided to throw caution to the wind and run for ten seconds. I know…slow down there, Tiger! As you would imagine, it was awkward. My form was weird, I was petrified more than two steps with the impact of 4x my body weight would cause me to collapse into a puddle on the side of the road. Hey, ain’t like it hasn’t happened before. But…it didn’t hurt and I think that little burst of energy can carry me at least three more weeks.

That’s the next update…three weeks, when I go back in to see Dr. McNutt. At that point I’m hoping I’ll get the “almost all-clear”, after which I will get a follow-up MRI to ensure the fracture has healed.  Once the MRI comes back clear, I’ll be ready to start up again. I won’t lie…I’m scared. The pain three months ago was excruciating, and the recovery wasn’t easy at times. Some folks who thought I was weird and odd for running in the first place now think I’m even weirder and more odd for giving it another shot.  I don’t know how to explain it, except running gave me a greater sense of personal satisfaction and accomplishment than my last three  jobs combined.

That’s pretty powerful (and rather sad, truthfully), and I will not give that up without a fight.