Sunday, October 22, 2017

This Road Looks Familiar. Too Familiar.

Three weeks ago it happened.  Again.  Hamstring cracked.  This time was pretty bad.  I was trying to just get back to the end of the run as slowly as I could without doing major damage.  About a quarter mile from the end and I felt it from the top of my hip down to below my knee; like a rubber band that suddenly stretched to its limit through the middle of my leg.  Knew then I was back to square 0 on my next road to recovery.

The problem was that this isn't a new road to recovery; it is one that I am quite familiar with, too much so,  and have grown bored with as far as scenery.  I don't want to travel this road again, but I must.

When I say I must, I am being literal here.  You see, I have no choice.  There are those out there, like some in my family, that always correct me when I say I have to go for a run.  They try to correct me by saying I don't *have* to go run, that I choose to go run.  That is just not the case.  I truly have to go run.  And to do that again, I must travel this same road, no matter how I hate it, how I hate the potholes in it, how I hate the overgrown grass on the side of the road.  My mind and my body do not allow anything else.  Running is part of me and dwells deep in my soul, attaching itself to every fiber of my life.  Others may think that after the past couple years of traveling and re-traveling this road that I could just give up running and take up other activities.  That is not possible.  I can't.

And so I find myself back at mile 1 of this road.  I am hitting it hard with PT and with their help, I will figure out the weaknesses in my body that contribute to stressing my hamstrings.  I am hitting it hard with  activities that I can do without causing undo stress on my hamstring while I strengthen it and the rest of my body.  I am looking into hiring a coach that can help guide my training once I get back to the point of a regular running routine again.

So after three weeks, I was given the go ahead by my therapist to try some walk/run this weekend.  Nothing too ambitious. Just jogging very slowly for 1 minute, separated by 5 minutes of walking.  This morning I hit the road to do this.  While I would like to say that everything was great, that isn't so.  I had some low grade pain from my hammie, but nothing sharp and nothing escalating.  We will see how it feels later today and into tomorrow.  While it was not perfect, it was another step down this road.

One day, I am planning on dragging out the "Road Closed" sign and placing it and some concrete barriers in front of this road so that I never have to travel this way again  Until that day, I will toil down this path making the best of it that I can.  I have some great people helping me along the way and I am finding additional great people that are helping smooth the road even more.

My prayer for all of you reading this is that you do not find yourself on this same road, or if you do, that you pass along it quickly, never to return.  Trust me, when this road becomes familiar, it is no fun.  I am not revisiting its path because I want to.  But given the hand I was dealt 3 weeks ago, I must.  There is no option for me.  And so I plod along, slow step by slow step, focusing not on the all-too familiar scenery this time, but on the small dot at the end of this road, my ultimate goal of strong and pain-free running.

I have no choice.

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