I Finally Listened!

I have been accused of not listening in the past...it started when I was young and it got me a lot of time in the corner, detention, and occasionally the Principal's office. Later in life, it got me in the "dog house" but in recent years, I learned to listen more, except to my own body. I would often just push though the pain and take care of it later with an "Advil/Aleve" cocktail. Last year, I had an IT Band issue in my left leg. Although I rested for two weeks, I started running before I should have. I was addicted to running and didn't care what my body was saying...I wanted to be out running.

This latest injury (groin pull) is pretty serious. I did take two weeks off and did absolutely nothing at all. Week 3, I started swimming and week 4, I did two runs totally 11 miles. This last week I ran 8.42 miles on Thursday at a pace that was too fast and Saturday, I did 10.21 miles at a much slower pace. Since I didn't have my running partner with me to tell me to slow down, I made up a wristband that said "SLOW DOWN - RP" and every time I looked at it, I heard her voice telling me to slow down. I must say that it worked. I still cant figure out why it is so hard to run slower.


Around mile 6, I started to notice a "hot spot" developing on my right foot. After a brief potty stop at LA Fitness, I had to make a decision...continue to go for 12 miles or turn left and call it at 10 miles. The old me, would have just pushed on for 12 miles, but the new me decided to turn left and just do 10 miles, knowing in the back of my head, I have the SRLA 18 mile run next Sunday and that is my test to see if I will be able to run the LA Marathon. Once I got home, I stood waist deep in my 50 degree pool for about 10 minutes, once you get over the shock of the cold, it actually felt pretty good. I had scheduled a 6 mile run for today, but this morning when I woke up, my legs felt heavy and sore, so I decided to make today another rest day. (See...I'm learning!) This coming week will see a lot of time in the pool, 4 days to be exact with a run on Thursday night with the group and Sunday's 18 miler to finish off the week.

On a side note, Saturday afternoon was very productive...I started working on a rack to hang all of my medals. I got tired of seeing them hang on the corner of a bookcase in my office. I made an initial design, got out the saws and router table and went to work. I hope to paint it today and have pictures later in the week.