Today, in about two and a half hours, I'm supposed to be waking up and heading across the island for a fun Splash and Dash. It's a 500m swim/5k on the Marine Corps base I signed up for a few weeks ago to have something to look forward to. Military events are always well priced and Super Awesome Wife and I enjoyed doing it as a relay last year.
Thursday evening I went for an easy run. Planned three and a half miles or so. Every once in a while for the first mile and a half I'd get a sharp twinge on the inside of my right knee. By the time I was breaking two miles that twinge was pretty constant and getting sharper. At 2.25mi I couldn't run anymore. I cut my course short and walked home. Frustrated. Grumpy. Muttering to myself about being lazy and not doing the rehab like I should have been. A few times on the walk home, as you do, I tried running. Maybe it was a phantom pain. Maybe it was one of those sharp knee pains that goes away after a few minutes, like magic.
Or maybe it would be right there, waiting to pull me up short.
Yeah, take door number two.
So now I have all of Friday, which I spend popping ibprofen, wearing my compression brace, stretching, foam rolling, and oscillating back and forth between "I don't think I can run a 5k, and I don't want to walk it" and "Stop being a pussy, you'll be fine." And I mean hard swings back and forth. The mind argues, "It won't be any fun and you'll probably be stupid and try to run through the pain, which will probably just make it worse in the long run." "Shut up, wuss. You did a 70.3 and you're worried about three freaking miles?"
Yeah, I am. The difference between the pain of muscle breakdown over the course of a hard race and the pain of working through an injury is vast. One you feel like a champion for breaking through. The other you just feel breaking.
But that isn't stopping me from being up at 3am feeling guilty. It actually woke me up at 2:30, because it's nearly all I've been thinking about today (well, that and this, which I would appreciate you taking eight minutes to watch). So 2:35am found me pacing my apartment, running in place, and doing squats, waiting to see when and if the pain would kick in. I would do something, no pain, then I would walk a little and there was the dull throb in the back, waiting, taunting me. Will I become a full on sharp stab like Thursday? Will I ruin your race? I know I should argue back that I don't care, it is a $25 fun event and no one will blame me for walking if I have to. But I will. I didn't sign up to walk, to half ass it. I signed up to go.
So my choices are go and almost for sure hurt with injury pain, which will make me frustrated that I went and that I'm hurt, or protect my knee and not go and try not to feel like a bitch for it. It seems like I keep missing workouts and events.
I turned off my alarm. I'm not going to risk it. I'm not going to go. I'm going to stay home and be grumpy that I stayed home. I'm going to question my choice about a hundred times in the next 24 hours, probably beat myself up a little, and try not to be too much of a grump to pregnant wife. As I type that I check in with my knee and right now- no pain. But I'm pretty sure that's a myth. And I've got to trust myself.
*grumble*
sooo? I am going to take it you did not go? Probably a wise choice. Sometimes you have to listen to your body
ReplyDeleteI did not. I feel lame. But my knee the whole weekend told me I made the right choice.
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