Injury and recovery

You're probably wondering why I haven't posted anything since the end of July. That is, if you're still checking the site to see if I'm posting at all!

My longest run was 9 miles in Antioch, about 5 weeks ago. There were a LOT more hills on the course than I expected, and by the end of the 9th mile, my left leg was really hurting. I expected it to get better in a day or two, as had all the other minor aches and pains that have come with this training process, so when it didn't I started to get worried.

I made a couple of visits to the team's sports doctor, a chiropractor who's been able to help a lot of people out with their injuries and aggravations. Unfortunately, after the three-session group that we started with, my leg wasn't remarkably better, so the next step was to go visit my general practitioner.

When I talked with her, she said I had injured a tendon in my left quadricep and that the normal healing time for tendons started at 6 weeks. Bummed doesn't even begin to describe how I felt when I heard that, since it meant I had at least a couple more weeks to wait before running again. She told me to load up on the anti-inflammatories (the Aleve generic is what I'm using, in case anyone's curious) and stick to swimming and yoga as my exercise, not even to do stationary biking since that would aggravate the tendon somewhat as well.

Swimming's a tough thing for me - I always feel like it's such a production (15 minutes to get to the gym, 10 minutes to change out of regular clothes and into my swim suit, 30-45 minutes of swimming, 15 minutes to dry off and put regular clothes back on, 15 minutes to drive home, then 30-45 minutes to shower, change, put on makeup and get back to "real life"). So I haven't been doing much, to be completely honest. I know that my fitness level has declined somewhat because of that.

I've been trying to stay connected with my team throughout this process even though I'm not really able to keep training. For the last two coached runs, I volunteered at a water stop to help encourage my teammates along on their runs. And I went to track practice most of the weeks and did what I could, and cheered when I couldn't. That's helped, because it keeps my mind focused on the half-marathon even though I haven't been running.

This morning, my family and I participated in Race For The Cure in San Francisco, and I was able to do the 5K as a run/walk with relatively little discomfort. I definitely felt the difference in my fitness level - my heart rate averaged a little higher than it was averaging the weekend of my 9-miler, my breathing was a little more irregular, and my stamina wasn't quite as good - but all in all I was pleasantly surprised by how much fitness my body has hung on to despite the setback of the injury.

Since the run this morning, I've been icing my leg to keep it happy, and took a nice big long nap after the run as a treat.

Tomorrow I have my followup appointment with my GP to check in on how the healing is going. Since I ran today, I'll be able to get a good sense of how much my leg has been able to bounce back when I see my doctor tomorrow.

Depending on how this next week goes (and of course, on what the doctor says tomorrow), I may have to change events to give myself some additional time to heal. I'm hoping that won't be the case - I'd like to be able to do the Nike as scheduled - but if my body can't do it, I have to honor that. The last thing I want to do is injure myself permanently and not be able to go back to running at all...