A large part of that was dealing with a big unknown which now is known and not as big a deal as I thought it would be!
Two weeks before the SLO Half Marathon I injured myself. Not running, not even doing anything remotely cool. I managed to hit the backside of my elbow on the bathroom counter. Holy sweet baby Jesus! It hurt like hell!
It was really early in the morning and Chad was sleeping but somehow he knew that this ouch was a different ouch then my normal "hey I walked into the wall that's been there the entire time we've lived in this house" ouch. Immediately following the pain I became nauseated and walked to the kitchen. Well the nausea kept coming and I was focusing on not puking. Apparently I should have been focusing on remaining conscious because the next thing I know I'm laid out on the floor with Chad holding my shoulders and rubbing my nose (New trick for work? Rubbing an unconscious persons nose wakes 'em up!).
Now I felt like an ass. Really I hit my elbow and passed out!? Once I was awake the elbow felt pretty good considering. However my right knee did not feel right. See straightening it out hurt, bending it hurt, but hey running didn't hurt!
I iced and wrapped it and took a few days off running where it did improve and then went on to PR the crap out of the half! Then a few weeks later I was running and got a gnarly "cramp" in my right calf. Well I did the right thing and made an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon. Yes at 32 I have my own knee Dr. He's already fixed it once (dislocated patella with continued instability until he fixed it) and I was counting on him to fix it again.
Well the "cramp" wasn't a cramp, it was a mild tear to my muscle. And he put all running and impact sports on halt until the almighty MRI came back thinking I was altering my stride trying to protect my knee and causing calf problems. He was pretty sure I had a tear to my meniscus.
Good news, no tears on the MRI and in fact my cartilage looks "really good for a 32 year old runner". I'll take a compliment of my soft tissue integrity any day!
Bad news, my knee was still gonna hurt. Best guess is that there may be a small rough area to the cartilage which is causing inflammation. It will get better but we have no time frame and I'm not damaging anything. I was immediately cleared to restart running (after 4+ weeks off) as long as I eased back into it.
Luckily I spent my non running time falling in love with cross training! I am now a regular at 6am spin class before going to work (who does that!?) and am swimming 1000-2000meter a couple times a week in addition to yoga.
Its a good thing I didn't throw everything out the window because now I am back on for my first triathlon on July 27th! Half mile swim, 15 mile bike and 5k run.
I am a little shocked at how hard running is right now but I know it will get easier. I'm going to focus on slooooow which is not what I want to do but is what I need to do.
I will also get to finally use my new toy to its full extent! After the half I got a Garmin 910xt on deep discount with an additional mail in rebate. Sometimes the stars align!
I was obviously missing running because I dressed Charlie in all my Ragnar gear! That poor sweet dog hehe.
Next up will be more tri training talk, the great return to running and a summer/fall full of fun!
