Ok it’s been a few months since I’ve posted. I could scapegoat the new job, wedding-planning, continued health frustrations, or any number of things, but I’ll just own it: I failed to keep up the consistent writing on my first go. I was aiming to get a post out every week to ten days, and fell off after about two months.
Take two.
I’m not gonna call it a new year’s resolution, because, much like tattooing a significant other’s name into your skin, the second you tether a goal to an annual makeover process you’ve destined it to fail. Also it’s already halfway through February. So yeah, in the same way I’m aiming blindly and wildly for an injury-free season, let’s just lean in and try this again and see what happens. Easier, less stringent goal-setting; how ‘bout two posts a month?
When I last left you, dear readers, (hi mom and dad!) I was trying to stay active and upbeat while the annual left ankle stress fracture kept me off my feet. I am now slowly getting back to running, a couple protracted miles at a time. I keep thinking back to this time last year when I was doing the same thing starting to run again after being sidelined throughout the fall.
The facts are so similar, but this second time around I’m not so exuberant about running again as 2013/14 me was. I thought then that I’d gone through a one-time freak injury. I’d done my time in my air boot and given up a chunk of that season, and whatever my body or the universe was trying to teach me, they’d succeeded. I’d made my sacrifice to the injury gods and they were satisfied. It was full steam ahead to the next season!
Now that I’ve gone through the same body-betrayal twice, I. Am. Terrified. I feel like I can’t trust my own bones. And I still gleefully registered for a full sampling of runs and tri’s for 2015, but with the first one (Rock n Roll USA) looming a month away I’m starting to wonder if I can do this.
I still love running, fuck I love it. Even in these frozen cold windy weeks it’s all sorts of joy and freedom. But each run and recovery are now an emotional pendulum between reveling in the freedom of it and a forced pumping of brakes. I’m shouldering the proverbial angel and devil duo, whispering competing refrains of, ‘you can do it.’ ‘No you can’t.’ ‘You can!’ ‘You can’t!’ ‘YOU CAN! GO FASTER!’ YOU CAN’T! SLOW THE FRICK DOWN YOU ASSHOLE!’ Honestly, I’m not sure which voice is which. Who’s really on my side.
The oscillating self-confidence manifests manically in my long run splits each week. The (judges) mile-marking updates from the MapMyRun vocal avatar seems to house and spew the you-can-you-can’t ravings of both my angel and devil hangers-on. Am I over an 8:15? Pick up that turnover you pitiful glacial midget! You can! Did I drop sub-8? What’s wrong with you, you slow lazy season-saboteur?!
I’m just trying to be smarter about it than I have been in previous years. Adding the miles more slowly, both in terms of accruing distance and picking up the pace. And I have successfully listened to my body and taken actual rest days and skipped run days or kept them slower or shorter than planned when my legs called for it. I’ve also started taking a class called SolidCore (more on that some other post – don’t worry – didn’t you hear? I’m writing two a month now!) which is building strength in ways I’ve never experienced. (I WILL earn my crop top after-party wedding dress! I finally have the ab definition to pull it off!)
And the Vitamin D! I have no idea if it’s making the difference I think (hope [pray to Odin]) it is, but twice daily I knock back 1000 IU of D and 1200 mg of Calcium, praying to someday outstrip my octogenarian grandmother’s bone density. I’m on 500% of my daily recommended value of D and over 200% on Calcium – that’s gotta count for something, right?? (Oh and that’s for a regular-sized human. For this 4’10” 100lb mini-munchkin it’s probably more! Then again, I chow right past that average 2000 calorie daily diet, usually before dinner, so maybe not.)
Maybe at some point I’ll become comfortable again in my shaky bones, but maybe not. And if comfortable means complacent, or that I forget what I’ve learned from my setbacks, then I’ll take the anxious running. A little worrying is still a helluvalot more fun than standing on the sidelines. (As long as it doesn’t cause worry-wrinkles. As far as I know they don’t yet make PT for crow’s feet.)