Day 18

Got all ready to go only to discover a dead zune. Damn, must wait 'till it charges. In the meantime I can try to stretch my IT bands. I Googled how to do this, and when I do the stretches that 'Runners World' and other places recommend, I feel a nice deep stretch, just not where my IT band is. Hope that is ok. I kinda feel like my kneecaps are going to fall off.

Lou is home from his Wisconsin excursion. Very excited to take him out on a run. Its raining, so this will be a first. Kind of excited, wish I had a water repellent jacket. But my sweat shirt will have to do :) I’m a big girl, I wont melt. I think I am bound and determined to go into the running room. It’s only a store. A store full of very cute and very tiny running paraphernalia. Am making Tuscan white bean chili tomorrow for dinner. I hate chili, but all the protein will do me good. And it will be warm and spicy. Good rainy day fodder.

Run recap!

This fucking sucks. Ow ow ow. I wanna cry. It finally happened. I hurt myself. Classic overuse injury. I was out the door and admiring the night. It was warm and the air smelled fresh after the rain. Not like worms though. I hate that smell.

So I started running. And then I noticed I wasn’t going any faster. My brain couldn’t get my legs to move as fast as I wanted them to, because my knees and lower back were saying ‘ oh hell no’

*Ok, ill just walk a few blocks, warm up, then it'll be fine*. We got to my favorite block to run down, so I started running, my brain thought I was running. My body seemed to be doing this hobble/limp thing. Again my knees and back were saying 'Nope. Not today.' *That’s weird. Huh. I'll try again in a few blocks*

Tried again, only this time it felt like someone was sticking a red hot poker into my right knee.

I think I feel worse mentally than I do physically. I feel…frustrated…robbed even. I feel frustrated because this is a situation where I can not strong-arm my way through it. I can’t force myself to heal faster. I'm frustrated that I couldn’t get my body to do what I wanted it to do. And honestly it pisses me off. I feel robbed of the perfect feeling I feel when I run. The happy, free, flowers and sunshine feeling. I know it will come back soon, but I want it NOW. I don’t want to go a single day without it. I’m sad and I will miss it.

I’m off to self medicate with ice, potato chips, hard cider, and old SNL re runs.

Note: It never occurred to me to stop being active completely. While in the thick of the pain I thought: *Just cross train for a few days* I think it’s funny. And also exactly what I am going to do. (Maybe that makes me a real runner now?)