I told myself I’d be better about blogging this year and
I’ve already failed miserably. It’s hard catching up after so much time has
passed. Though it feels like the time has contained more of the same story.
I ended the last post saying I was going to try my first
run after a long break. It went fine enough and I was so happy to be running. So
I increased from a grand 10 minute run to 15 minute runs. That’s as far as I
ever got. A half dozen 15-minute runs. I had new custom orthotics which gave me
giant blisters on both my feet. Pretty impressive for such a short run. Had to
have them shaved down twice to fix that issue. Most of my runs were on a track
to ensure I ran on a flat terrain. Yet the changes weren’t enough and the pain
in my knee came back. This brought on another round of feeling depressed and
defeated. I got over myself eventually but it took a few days of pouting to get
there. I was officially back to not running.
In December I went to Kiawah once again for the half
marathon. Although I was registered, I obviously did not race. I knew that
would be the case months before the race and made peace with it. Instead I had
a fun weekend with over a dozen girls in one house (so much estrogen) and dragged
my bike with me so I could still train. I got to cheer on girls setting PRs and
racing their first half and full marathons which made my heart happy. I want
nothing more than to be out there racing my heart out but it was a good
alternative.
End of the year brought traveling back home for
Christmas. Like Kiawah, I dragged my bike with me to Virginia so I could train.
Now if you know me, you know I do NOT skip training. Sure, it happens
occasionally because I’m sick or the gym shut down because we got 1” of snow
but very rarely do I skip training because I didn’t feel like training. Something happened over Christmas break though.
I just felt… done. I was sick of feeling like I was always fighting and I didn’t
know what I was fighting for anymore. I was sick of dragging my bike around
everywhere with me so I could continue to kick my ass to be in shape for…what?
Still not racing and still no idea when I will race. It’s not like when I first
got back into training and I wanted to build up my fitness level. I was in good
shape, probably best swimming and biking shape I’d ever been in. But I was
lacking the purpose. The drive to keep me going. Within one week I skipped two
swims, one strength, one elliptical and cut a ride short.
I told myself after all the skipped training that I just
needed to get over myself and push onwards. I ended the year with a 100x100
swim which makes 10K officially my longest swim ever. I was happy to at least
end the year on a high note. I got backing to pushing hard in training for
about 2 weeks. Then I went away to Asheville for the weekend to celebrate my husband’s
30’s birthday. It was a great relaxing weekend away. Unfortunately, he was sick
going into it and after spending a weekend in a tiny cabin together drinking
and hiking in below freezing temperatures, I caught it. Back to skipping
training because it was the right thing to do. Went back in forth between
feeling better and worse for a week before feeling I was good to train full
force again. Except I was not good to train mentally.
I was leaving for
vacation later that week and I didn’t not want to drag my bike with me on
another trip. After thinking long and hard on it, I knew I needed a break. An “off
season”. Mostly a break from the volume and intensity of training. But also, a
break from the structure of having to do this activity on this day at this
intensity. I wanted to wake up in the morning and swim if I felt like swimming
or ride in the afternoon is the weather looked nice. Since I made the decision
to step back from training, there have been a lot of days with zero training. Several
days with only a little easy training. At first I fought the lack of doing
anything but now I’m happy with it.
I went to Disney World and Universal with my family and
enjoyed not training, getting drunk at Epcot at 11AM and eating giant pink
doughnuts at Simpsonville. I walked a crazy amount and my feet hurt every day
but I was happy to not be completely idle. The good news is that I did do two
runs there. I wanted to do the runs because one location in particular brought
back memories. It was where I walked when I was talking to my husband at night
on the phone when we just started dating. It was where I did training runs when
I was visiting for my first half marathon. I spent that run thinking of how far
I’d come since then and everything I’d learned. It was a peaceful run.
The story with my running as of now is this…. I got an
MRI of my knee. In layman’s terms, it showed I have scarred tissue most likely
from a surgery I had in 2010 and inflammation in several spots. The doctor said
surgery is an option but not recommended at this time and I agree, I don’t want
surgery. He said I could run and the pain will most likely return but it won’t
be doing damage to the knee. So I’m back to short little runs and essentially
waiting for the pain to return. In fact, I’m already feeling it a bit but it’s
still minimal right now. This isn’t exactly the “answer” I wanted for running
but it’s the cards I’ve been dealt. I was told by another orthopedist years ago
that I would most likely deal with knee pain my whole life and so here I am. I’ll
work with what I’ve got and do what I can to improve the situation but it might
not be enough. For now, I’m just happy to be running. Hopefully my mojo returns
as I start to slowly get back into a routine. But I'm happily out of my normal routine right now and back in Boulder for run camp (spoiler... with limited running).
