Crying Wolf??

Wednesday in spin class my right calf cried, "OUCH".  I did listen to it; I sat down in the saddle and slowed down a bit.  I didn't do any kind of exercise yesterday at all and just let my legs rest.  Today was another planned run with Turtle...but on the way over to her house, my left calf (the one that was injured) started crying, "OUCH"....I was just walking.

I decided the "OUCH" was really just "wolf", and decided not to listen to it.  I planned a slower paced 1.5 mile run, then walk/run intervals for us today.  It's amazing to me how much "helping" her is helping me!!  I plan out what kind of running we'll do and try to think it through more than just, "I'm going to run X miles today".  I can't explain it really.  Also, it's reminding me how I felt just a few short months ago and how I couldn't run more than 30 seconds or a minute at a time without thinking I was going to die.

***
Somehow I missed a blog post from Run Like a Mother that was written last month...and found it today.  One of the book's author's has been plagued with injuries and was trying to decide whether or not to run the NYC marathon.  In the post I just read today she made some promises to herself.  Basically

1. listen to her body
2. be more concerned about form instead of time
3. not set a time goal, but run stronger and healthier (rather than train herself into the ground)
4. have unconventional training (swimming, biking, Pilates, strength training, trail running for time not distance)
5. be willing to cut training short to stretch or roll (foam roll that is)

I think it's easy to make those promises in the beginning of training.  The problem comes when you start to mistrust your body.  See, when I started running in January...my body routinely told me, "you can't do this" and I had to push past that feeling or I never would have been able to run a minute, much less a mile.  My body cried wolf, and I had to call it a liar.

But, at the same time listening to our bodies is the only way we can run injury free.  We have to be able to discern the difference between an indolent whine and a true cry of pain.  Honestly, I'm still not really there yet.  My body has cried wolf so many times, I don't know when to really listen to it.  I do not want to hobble through another training plan like I did last time, but at the same time, I don't want to cut short of what I can realistically accomplish by pushing myself.

I won't know until later today if my calf was serious or not...my guess is that it was just kind of yawning a bit since we run pretty early...maybe it woke up on the wrong side of the bed, didn't get to finish the good dream it was having.  It sure would make "listening to my body" a lot easier if we could just speak the same language and if it wouldn't color the truth!!  I'd like to believe that my body just doesn't know what real pain is.  Remember, I'm a princess, and even a pea can feel like it hurts!

That reminds me...I don't think I ever posted the real picture of the blister I talked about in that post (The (Almost) Princess and the Blister).  I think I was truly ashamed.....but, what the heck.  The blister that my body was crying "OUCH" over looked like this:

Can you see why I have a hard time believing it when I hear a body part tell me something hurts??

Thanks for stopping in, come again soon!
:D

The (Almost) Princess and the Blister

Find this picture here.

We've all heard the story of the the whiny little princess who couldn't sleep because of a little pea under her mattress, right?  I always thought it was a far-fetched tale, until I metaphorically "slept in her bed".  No, I haven't been sleeping on 29 thousand mattresses and this has nothing to do with my bed....

Let me explain.

See, the princess had been pampered her whole life.  Something out of the ordinary, namely a little pea under her mattress, caused her cushy status quo to be upset.   That tiny thing was a HUGE discomfort to her, whereas someone who is used to sleeping on rocks would have slept like a bear in winter on that "lumpy" bed.  It's a matter of relativity.

The idea that pain could be relative came crashing into my world last week and I simply must share the story with you.

I put on a pair of shoes I haven't worn in quite a while to go out the other night.  A short while later I felt an old familiar "rub".  Before I even had time to act, a blister formed and popped.  I could barely walk until I got a band aide over that tender patch of skin.
 

As I was hobbling into the restaurant, hoping to get my wound dressed before dinner, I whined to my husband about how my blister was killing me.  (If you're like me, you looked at the pictures before you started reading this post.....I sure hope they didn't gross you out too much!)  My husband was laughing at me, sarcastically asking if he needed to carry me into the restaurant.  I thought, "If he only knew the kind of pain I was in, he wouldn't be making light of the situation."

As I was lamenting over the hole in my foot, waiting for the server to bring me some "supplies", I got to thinking.   Pain really is relative--there are varying degrees of it.  It's not like I had my foot run over by a train or something really horrible like that.  I mean, come on, it was a blister for crying out loud.  I could hear the words of wisdom from reachdown: "Suck it up, buttercup!"  That's when it hit me--the reason the princess couldn't sleep was not that the pea hurt, but it caused a situation that she just wasn't used to. 

I'm hoping that's what's been going on with my left calf.  I'm hoping that the pain I've been feeling is just a "pea".  I think if the princess was told she had to "suck it up" and just DEAL instead of being pampered and babied, she'd learn to sleep.  Right?  Isn't that how people learn to overcome whatever is standing between them and their goal??  They "suck it up" and DEAL. 

Intestinal fortitude....it's just not something I was ever forced to have in my cushy, pampered life.  I'm hoping that's one thing I'm learning from running.  It's the reason I've been trying to stick with the program...even though I've altered the plan a bit.  (After all, I'm still learning the difference between discomfort and injury....I should be able to deal with discomfort, such as a little blister, but at the same time, I don't want an injury to take me away from running for weeks (or for good).

So, I'm going to continue my efforts toward learning to sleep on a pea!!


By the way, you don't really believe that's a picture of MY blister, do you?  Come on--that's obviously a man's foot.  I can assure you, my pampered feet do NOT look like that...and I would never, not in a million years, be able to walk on that thing, much less run.

That picture, dear reader, is one of Eric Charette's foot after running 161.1 miles in four days (at the point this picture was taken).  He then ran another 10.1 miles the next day to finish out the Alabama Pinhoti Trail Adventure Run (total time: 4 days, 5 hours, 39 minutes and 25 seconds).  I'll post a picture of MY blister later in the week.  I didn't want to spoil my great story of the relativity of pain with a picture of the pea!!