Once a...always a....?

God lord I hope so. I'm checking in to give myself a very public pity party. I have no idea why this crap always happens to me. Maybe because I'm a miserable, negative pain in the ass who deserves nothing but failure. I told you it's a pity party. Decide right now whether you're attending. If not, click away, quickly.

I've been going to the chiropractor, who I love. I've been getting the painful Graston (I cried on Thursday when she tried to separate my hamstrings from each other). I've been getting the "massages" that aren't really massages but more like a lot of elbows in the hamstring. And every time I set out for a run the pain comes back. Sometimes worse than others. And it's taken the joy I used to have for running right out of the equation. Now I simply start out and wait for the hamstring to flare and start making mental notes to tell to my chiropractor.

Now a lot of this is my fault. I haven't done a lot of strengthening and as soon as I decided the full marathon was out (yes. I made the decision), I resigned from being a caveman. But seriously, will this thing ever go away? Am I just being a big huge baby?

But then I think about how the chiropractor always seems a little amazed about what is going on with my leg muscles. She brought her assistant in to feel the situation and then told me that she was going to spend the weekend trying to figure out why my quad muscle has moved and now partially wraps around the back of my leg. So I do know I'm not making up the pain. The question is, do I just run through it, or continue to baby it? I do think it's gotten to this point because I have just run through it since getting back on the horse 2 years ago. I can pinpoint at least three separate instances where I pushed too hard when I knew my hamstrings were toast and hurt. I just wanted the glory of sprinting to the top of the hill or getting that 8:20 timed mile.

Whew. This is getting boring. But I'm still in my running clothes. And I'm still sweaty and I just don't know what to do. When it started happening again on my run, I pretty much realized a half marathon now seems just as daunting as the full. I decided not to do it. And that is sad. Because again, I got half way through the training and failed miserably.

As much as I don't want to quit, I also don't want to make it worse. I also don't want to flush 200 dollars down the toilet and not at least try. But do I want to tear it or worse? Or do I want to suck it up, cancel the race and still go to Eugene and be surrounded by people happy to be running and completing their first marathon or hitting their PR or something else that's effing positive? Won't I be miserable? Of course. It's who I am.

So just a whole lot of question marks. So I went to this blog to see what she did. And it made me feel a little better that she made the decision not to run.

It's really breaking my black little heart and I don't know what to do.

Maybe look some more at this guy:

The Caveman Cometh

(huuuuuuuuge sigh)

Such a long story. Such heartbreak. Such pity partying. Such weird dreams. Such becomes such a strange word when you use it a lot.

Weeks ago I went for a 14 mile run. It was going great until mile 10 when I had a sudden attack of IT band-itis. Pain at the side of the knee like a mother fucker. No better words to describe it. Had to run/walk, bite my tongue for four miles. I tried everything to make it stop nothing worked.

Came home. Cried to Michael (keep in mind this is the exact same "injury" and leg that kept me finishing the Portland Marathon a.k.a The Big Running Failure). Then got down to Internet research.

On some random message board, a guy told another guy to "just go get Graston and be done with it." I've done a ton of research on running injuries and have never heard of this. So, I read and read and found some chiropractors in town who can do it. They use stainless steel torture devices.

So I scheduled my first treatment at Hawthorne Chiropractic. We've been doing a lot of Active Release Therapy (ART) and I've had one session of Graston. Both hurt. A lot. I bruised. And I got to wear that sweet tape you may have seen in the Olympics. So I'm now an Olympic-caliber athlete.

So in the past three weeks I've had:

• ART (3x)
  
• Graston
• X-ray to determine severity of leg length discrepancy (oh yes! one leg a lot shorter than the other. Got a lift. May be just voodoo medicine)
• Video gait analysis (I run with my legs too close together and my stride is not long enough)
• Painful massage
• Kinsei Taping
  
• Maybe 8 miles of running total

The real problem is not the IT band. I can fix that readily with the foam roller (damn you foam roller). It's the chronic hamstring on the other leg. I hate hamstrings. Last night I had a dream that my real doctor told me not to run the marathon because a) the hamstring isn't fixed and b) I'm not ready training-wise. I thought about getting a t-shirt in my goody bag and never being able to wear it. I thought about the pain in having to tell people that yes, in fact I've failed at TWO marathon attempts. So I ran it. In my dream. Which amounted to me walking around and talking to people and trying to avoid tornadoes.

So, what's the deal with the Caveman? The chiropractor recommended that I try the Paleo Diet.

Here's what you can eat: meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables.
Here's what you can't eat: everything, including potatoes.

So I started it two days before my birthday, ignored it on my birthday and also our two days in Lincoln City.

(SIDE STORY: met the lead singer of Air Supply in the elevator while at the coast. I gushed "I love your songs!!" [I truly do]. And the gold digger girlfriend/manager/Yoko Ono told me about his NEW CD where he sings a duet with his daughter. Uh, no thanks. Like that could compare to Making Love Out of Nothing At All??! SIDE STORY 2: I am a Lincoln City 10. If you're ever feeling bad about yourself physically, please get to Lincoln City pronto and feel gorgeous!)

So, the diet. I've been very consistent with it and surprisingly enough I have more energy and am not hungry. I was fully ready to be starving all the time. Why this diet? It's all non-inflammatory food. With all the treatments and leg issues I don't need any more inflammation. I'm doing it for a month. Check back then.

Every night Michael and I have an exchange like this: Did you know cavemen drank vodka? Totally. They grew the potatoes and made that shit all the time. Did you know cavemen invented bacos? Etc. etc.

So one month to D-Day. I plan on upping the mileage and just running right up to the marathon and treating it like my longest run ever.

P.S. It's true. The foam roller actually will stop hurting if you use it consistently. Oh, and a strong core will help with running. Damn you core!