I type this blog post as a self-soothing strategy, in hopes of finding enlightenment by reading the words back to myself on the screen. Last week, I almost posted a Facebook status reading something like this: Today (11 weeks out from my goal race) I ran a similar workout at the same pace as I ran 6 weeks out from the Eugene Marathon. I find comfort in knowing I'm that fit and have over 2 months to still train.
I decided not to post it.
I think part of the reasoning behind posting Facebook statuses about running and running workouts is to brag about how fit or unfit you are, in hopes that people will post comments to that status either in awe of your talent, or to help build you back up when you are feeling down. Of course, its not that I didn't want people to take notice of my accomplishments. But I had a gut feeling that as soon as I posted that, my world would come crashing down.
I didn't need to post anything for that to happen.
Let me back track. Two Thursdays ago I ran a 5K road race in 19:48. Now that time is 18sec slower than my PR, so its not like I should run around bragging that I'm in the best shape in my life. What that time does represent though, is a wall that I have broken though in my training. Leading up to last year, I could not break 20min for the 5K-ever! Now, unfit and under trained, I was able to not only break 20min, but go 12sec under it in my first 5K race of the season. The aftermath wasn't great. I took Friday off and ran too fast on Saturday and Sunday. My calf started giving me problems on my runs on Sunday and Monday and so I backed off the pace drastically. By Tuesday I was feeling better, but still laid low through Wednesday. On Thursday I ran that Facebook status worthy workout.
Yep, training was going good! Until....
Something happened between Thursday night and Friday morning. Thursday after the workout I felt great. I biked to work and to coach that evening and I felt great. That night I felt great and did Pilates. That morning I felt great and did my normal warm up exercises. I went out for a run Friday and while I was going along, my right knee cap kept getting tighter and tighter. I stopped to stretch several times on the the run, but it didn't seem to help. I finished the planned 6miles, since the soreness felt like a bruise rather than a muscle strain. I linked the problem to a tight quad and used the foam roller and stick when I got home. I found a few knots that I worked out, but noticed after rolling it, my knee felt worse. I went to work in pain and discovered a bruise on my knee cap. Hmmm, I thought, I must have clocked my knee on something. That would explain why stretching and massage didn't help.
Friday night after work, I iced and took Advil. I also coated my knee in Arnica cream. Saturday morning it felt even worse and was really swollen. Walking up and down stairs hurt badly especially when ever the bruise rolled over the edge of my knee cap. I tried to not walk much once I got off from work. Ice/Arnica/Advil did nothing. I had a 19mi long run with hills planned for Sunday and posted on the wall for the event that I was now a maybe.
Sunday morning I woke up and my knee felt great. The swelling had gone down and it didn't hurt to bend it. I hopped out of bed and got dressed to run. I decided to give it a test run around the block first before heading over to meet friends for a longer run. I got 2 blocks and my knee started to feel tight. By the third block the top crest of my knee cap and my inner quad muscle (VMO) was sore and starting to swell up. I walked home and went back to bed.
Kevin and I got up around 9am and went to church. It was just what I needed. The message was different this week. Instead of the pastor standing at the pulpit, preaching on whatever topic of the week they felt was important, the she and associate pastor sat on stools in the middle isle and answered any faith questions we may have. Many of the answers came back to one thing, people are so self involved. We only think of ourselves and how to get ahead in our own lives that we loose sight of the world and people around us. God sometimes sends us messages though trying and turbulent times which shows us that we are not alone and that we need to get out of our own heads. We prayed that day for a man who had just been diagnosed with MS, another person who was having a hard time adjusting being back from Iraq. An older gentleman who was in the hospital and had told his family he was ready to die. A woman with cancer. The list went on.
Suddenly my knee problem, didn't seem like much of a problem.
Monday morning it was the same deal. I woke up and felt great. I was able to run 1 mile this time before my knee started to get really sore and swell up. I came home, iced, and called my massage therapist, Kelly. I sent him a picture of my knee and he told me there was a bursae sac right underneath the muscle in that spot. Ice and Advil were the way to go until the swelling goes down. Once its gone, I'd be good to go. For now I just had to rest. Obviously there was no cross training I could do in the meantime to distract myself. Anytime I bent my knee it would only make things worse. That's when I decided to hop on the computer and begin typing; a self-soothing strategy that seems to only come out when I'm upset. Other times I have a constant writers block.
So I titled this blog, "What did I do wrong?" because I felt up until now I was finally doing everything right in my training to prevent something like this from happening. But that's when I realized, again I was doing it all wrong. I was becoming too self involved in my running to see the bigger picture. Running had become everything, otherwise this small thing wouldn't feel like such a big catastrophic thing. When I'm training, I'm so focused on workouts, injuries, recovery, etc that I don't enjoy my time with others because my mind is elsewhere. I wake up earlier, got to bed earlier, eat healthier, and train longer, not that any of those things are a bad thing, but they can lead down a slippery slope. What did I do wrong this time? I lost sight of more important things. Running was becoming everything because it was going well. Now its not going at all, and there's nothing I can substitute it with.
So I sit here writing and realizing that I can gain more today from not running than I could have in any run I would have done.
