I realize that I have been silent for a while on this blog and I apologize (since I know all you faithful readers sit home at night bidding your time until a new blog is posted (eye roll)). I have been playing a bit of a waiting game. It is about time for me to be gearing up for training for my December marathon. However, my recent runs (which have been less than stellar) have been more than usually painful. I knew, after a good year of pretending otherwise, that it was time to visit a doctor.
Dr. Scott (heck yes his name is Dr. Scott!) very patiently explained to me how big of a dummy I was for running on painful shins for a year and showed me the x-ray where my bone has been trying to heal itself over and over again and is now bowed out … stress fractures. Ugh. They most likely happened during my training for San Francisco last year. My first reaction was to say: Tell me what I CAN do. So, for the first three weeks: swimming only. Then, I can add bike for three more weeks. Then, back to the doctor, where we will create a plan for me to start running again and build into marathon training. It will be tough, but I think I can still make it for the December marathon.
PLEASE DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I DID! There are a LOT of theories out there about shin pain. Some will tell you to run through it, some will say two weeks off with ice, elevate, ibuprofen, wrap it, icy/hot, stretch it … bottom line is: don’t be stubborn. If after you try all of that and it still hurts … go to the doctor. If you have decent insurance it should just be a normal co-pay, they take a few pictures of your bones and you lay out a plan of action.
So, for the next several weeks, this is going to be a cross training blog! I have to face the fact that cross training is going to be a big part of my life. I am a HORRIBLE swimmer. But, that is something I will definitely be working on and I hope to bring you along for the ride. Maybe my adventure into other sports will awaken a new passion. I have been wanting to train for a triathlon and I can’t do that if I can’t learn to swim and bike better than I do now.
My first swim was on Friday. Twenty minutes in the pool, thirteen of which I felt like I was drowning. I get very tired, very quickly. Partly because I am out of shape and partly because I know I am horribly inefficient in the water. See, as a runner, I only have to focus on one motion at a time. Swimming is like rubbing your belly and patting your head. You have to focus on the arms and the legs at the same time. I am assuming that eventually at least one of those things comes naturally enough that I won’t have to constantly remind myself to keep kicking or to shark fin my elbow or to cup my hands or to roll or to … breathe. And preferably not choke on pool water while doing it. I swallowed a lot of water that day. Which is vile. But alas, I will soldier on because one thing is for sure: if I was stubborn enough to ignore stress fractures for a year, I am stubborn enough to learn to swim.
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