Feb 21, 2008

operation attitude adjustment

a little light bulb went off the other day. actually it was two lightbulbs, or maybe it was three. the first one was:

  • get to a happy place before my husband packed up the kids & left me to my sad sorry pathetic whiny self. am sure he wishes this lightbulb had gone off several days ago.
  • the second was the realization that while my head and heart had no intention of resting, my body clearly had other ideas and forced me into rest by messing with my illiotibial band mojo. i should just be a grownup and listen to it and go with it. yeah - this one took me a week to figure out.
  • thirdly, it might hurt too much to run more than 2 miles, but there were other things i could do. i should do them. this too, took me a shamefully long time to come to terms with. i couldn't see beyond the whole ithurtstoomuchtorunbutthatsalliwanttodo.

i am a work in progress, people. a work in progress. and so operation attitude adjustment began on wednesday. first order of the day was a fast angry swim that resulted in a nice little swimmy pr. i finally got my mile-in-30-minutes swim. well, close enough - i counted my laps, plugged it into log and it spit out .99 of a mile. i'm calling it good. fast angry swims do wonders for taking the edge off.

the next day, i went to the gym and got on the elliptical machine. and after i got over the fact that i am a total gym dork and didn't even know if i was on the right contraption, and didn't even know how to start it and almost fell off of it when i tried to read a magazine, all while desperately trying to look like i knew what the hell i was doing - once you figure it out and get going; if you close your eyes and listen to happy tunes, and move your legs and break a serious sweat - even though you are not outdoors moving forward through the world, it still takes the i'm-not-running-right-now edge off.

the other thing that takes the edge off is finding out what exactly is wrong with your damn knee. i finally got in to see my physical therapist today. it had been seven months since i was there last and it would seem that a few of my bio mechanical issues had come back to haunt me since my last visit. my left leg is slightly shorter, this results in my left hip getting torqued back after months of running which makes left leg even shorter and then it all goes downhill from there. i had been keeping everything in a happy place with my regular massage, i've been faithfully doing my keep-my-hips-aligned exercises for the last seven months, and hadn't had any hip pain whatsoever for months. but things had still gotten out of whack and this time it affected my knee. so i got popped and yanked back into place. the diagnosis on my knee? exactly as i had thought thanks to the magic of google: it is an illiotibial band thing. she said they can get pretty bad and mine didn't seem to be anywhere near pretty bad. in a way, it was good that it was too painful to run through, becasue if i could have run through it i would have - which would have made it much worse. but the pain just stopped me dead in my tracks. and this was good i guess. it made me listen. she did her magic ASTYM massage and i'll go back next week for two more. i can try to run in 2 days - run 5 minutes, walk 1, run 5 minutes, walk 1 - for 2 miles to start. knowing exactly what is wrong and taking measures to fix it always does wonders for the attitude.

the other item on my operation attitude adjustment plan was going to see the spirit of the marathon. i knew i would love this movie - i was hooked with the first line and wiping away the tears by the end. and i was already planning marathon number 4 by the time i walked out of the theater. (truth be told, i was planning it last week, but the marathon movie sealed the deal). the best part was that it was a date night with my husband. the fact that he even wanted to spend any time at all with me after the piss poor mood i have been in all week, and to spend time with me at a running movie of all things and watch me cry over it is just further testament to the fact that the man should be canonized.

i've just loaded up my old friend waterproof ipod with some groovin' new tunes and i'm off to the pool for a pool run. i never thought i'd see the day where i'd voluntarily subject myself to the mind-numbingness that is pool running without having it officially on a schedule. but here i am. happily headed off to the pool - a self imposed pool run. i think operation attitude adjustment is working.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

You're on the same "back to running" schedule my PT recommended back in October! (Of course, I had to push things a bit. I would run 12-15 minutes when I should have run 10, and 18-20 minutes when it should have been 15. Bad Betsy!)

Sooo... what's this 4th marathon? Could it be Washington state in June?

:)

zanne said...

haha! all i know is there will be a fourth - i don't know which one yet!! and june is too soon ... don't feel like ramping it up quite that soon just yet!!

lord girl - i just want to run more than 3 miles right now! :-)

Unknown said...

Oh fine. How about the Royal Victoria marathon in October? (Hubby and I are 95% sure we'll be doing the race. It's also a BQ!)

Anonymous said...

Don't you just love non-running husbands who go so "running" movies with you? Did you say pretty loudly, "don't drink the kool-aid" when you walked into the theatre...ha ha!!

4th marathon?? which one??

Nibbles said...

Hi, Zanne,

Glad you got to the root of the problem. I have a shorter left leg, too! I also have relatives in KY. Are we somehow related??

I wish you the very best of luck for your recovery. Injuries suck!!

Anonymous said...

Yay! I'm glad it's nothing serious. You'll be back on the road in no time! :)

Sunshine said...

Details like therapist help can make attitude adjustment fall into place, perhaps. (It wasn't all in your head.)
Have fun picking a marathon!
Happy running.

Gotta Run..... said...

I was turned onto the the Tiger Tail when my IT Band screamed at me last year. It was a must have and I roll my legs all the time now. I can hook you up with the blogger guru that can fill you in on all of the information. It saved me last year. It is saving me now!!!

Being at the gym is 100% mental and once you realize this it is actually a blessing in disguise.

BTW... you know you are planning your next race so don't act like you are not thinking about it :)

I like that OVEN2BETSY is hitting you with the questions...LOL!!!!