Thursday, December 23, 2010

Acceptance and adjustments.


Today started off well with the swim and a strength training workout with professional bodybuilder Kurt Weidner at the Weight Club (Jake is still out of town).  I'm pretty sure you could show up in a full-body cast and the guy would show no mercy.  Perfect!  I worked back and biceps and left in a much better mindset (it wasn't hard to improve on the fact that I was choking back tears on the way in).

Later I took the kids to Target to shop for stocking stuffers for each other. It left me exhausted, my leg was swollen, toes were purple, and I was done.  I got home, propped the foot up and didn't move for two hours.

I remember this pivotal moment the last time I was on crutches.  This was the moment when I realized I can't keep up the same pace of life without going to bed at 4 pm.  Time to make some adjustments.  Chill out more.  Run around less. Accept that my "training" right now is a lot of resting and healing.

I struck a deal with the kids.  I would try to refrain from barking out a constant stream of orders (pick up this, get me that...) but rather I would collect up and save all the commands, then, a few times a day, spew them all out.  They promise to run around and do what I tell them for 10 minutes at a pop.  So far so good. They think it's a game!!

So when you are sitting around "resting" and "healing" and have a laptop, you fill your time with things like Googling "fibular stress fracture". Ever wonder who works their way through to page 14 of the results? Down to the really obscure stuff?  Me! I read a big long thread on a runner's forum where one person after another posted that by trying to cross-train or run through a stress fx, they only delayed healing.  Things only improved when they totally backed off.  So maybe my doc is onto something by taking the choice out of my hands.  I will probably be glad he stood firmly against my desperate protesting.