Is Closure Ever a Good Thing?

Nope. It's been a whirlwind of activity these last 20 or so days since I began the diet/return to greatness/comeback and today is again day one for the diet.

However, I do think I've reached closure with the injury. Two days after the first Day One, I received Runners' World. I was excited to read Benjamin Cheever's article about his injury. His story read just like mine:

1. Get injured.
2. Do research.
3. Buy tons of products and services to help solve the problem/injury.
4. Become depressed when nothing works.

However, the author was given the name of a doctor who specializes in back pain, but has an interesting theory about pain in general:

When people don't deal with emotional baggage--whether it's from the stress of every day life or from more serious issues--the body will create real physical pain for the sufferer to deal with. It's all about the Mind Body connection. So, the doctor's name is Dr. John Sarno. I bought the book. I read the book. I nearly fell out of my chair when reading his description of people who suffer from this "syndrome."

So, as soon as I read the book and accepted that this is probably what is going on with me and my hamstring, that nagging pain in my back went away. I shit you not. Almost immediately.

The next thing on the docket was for me to have my last PT appointment. I planned to tell my fantastic PT about my new theory and discovery. But before I could even do that, he sat me down and started a counseling session. He began by saying: "You know, I've been talking to Amy (my fantastic chiropractor), and we both think you have so much on your plate...."

And at this point, I broke down and started blubbering like a big fat baby. I told him everything I'd discovered and he basically concurred. He encouraged me to keep doing my exercises but also deal with any issues in my life. Not looking forward to that.

Then, as I was driving home from Camas(I work there twice a week. Stupid. I know. And a big contributor to mind/body out-of-whackedness), I was in a car accident! Only my worst nightmare. I was the first car in a five car pile-up on the 405. Which means a dummy behind me couldn't stop in time and barreled into another car who then hit me. Then two other cars joined in the party. No damage to me, but 3000 to the car. Good times(tm).

A few days after that I had my big Chi Running Seminar. THE BOMB. I learned a new way to run and I'm amazed by it. Needless to say I've only run two times since then because I still have a lot of fear about running and the injury (it's natural says Dr. John Sarno), but each time I expended very little energy (I wasn't huffing and puffing like I thought I would be) and my legs didn't feel like cement posts. It's great. Get the book. Or sign up. As soon as the heat wave passes, I'm going to start running every day. For now, I've given up on my huge marathon goal. The pressure I put on myself to run a marathon and redeem my earlier failures was probably a big contributor to the injury. I'm just going to run and try to lose some weight. Then I'll sign up for some races.

And, that is that. Although, I am dealing with a 2 year old who is determined to break me. It's his life goal.

Anatomy of a Recovery: Day One

Even though I've been dealing with this injury since March and have been undergoing therapy, I haven't really felt like anything was ever going to improve. And I realize my really effing bad attitude will not help.

So, today is day one. Day one of the diet. Day one of the exercise. Day one of doing everything I can to get back to my old running self. Here's how Day One is going:

5:30am
Get out of bed only to find that I can't move--my upper neck/back area hurts so effing bad. I can't raise my arms or move my head without pain. At one point I cry big fat hot tears.

5:47am
Eat four advils.

5:50am
Prepare a healthy breakfast of 1/2 cup granola with strawberries, blueberries, bananas. Take the first bite and realize that the fruit tastes like it had been buried in dirt for five days.

5:55am
Spit out granola and prepare half a blueberry bagel. Get the cream cheese out of the fridge. Quickly discover the cream cheese has been at the back of the fridge and has frozen and thawed many times since its purchase. It looks like cottage cheese. I eat it anyway.

Day One is ROCKING!

So, that's how the morning starts. I should also mention The Zit (TM), which is like my new best friend. It arrived last week with a nice hard bump on my chin that escalated into a volcano with a whitehead so large it was practically un-popable. I hugged Owen and not only did it hurt when it brushed his head, but it was so huge that he had to ask: "What the heck is that?" Now it's nice and red and bloody with a scab that I have to fight not to pick off. I am so sexy it hurts right now.

So, last week I did a tiny amount of running with the PT. My homework is do some very light hill running and walking and exercises to strengthen the hammy and stabilize the pelvis (have I told you it's been an unstable pelvis this whole effing time? Thanks to C-sections and not using core muscles at all? Good lord). I was at the point last week where I was going to say eff this and just run again, but he told me not to panic. Obviously he doesn't know me very well.

That's about it from here. I'm hoping to post more regularly so there's a record of my amazing recovery and return to running. The not-running has been so difficult. It's truly been a grieving process, and I don't like it one bit. Here's to recovery!

And to that I say...

So still no resolution on the hamstring. I've been doing trigger point stuff, chiropractic stuff and there is still pain when I run. Even when I'm not running I can feel something going on. So tomorrow morning I'm going to Rebound Physical Therapy in Vancouver to meet with a supposed miracle-worker-with-runners guy. We'll see.

One of the biggest things I hate about this injury that half the time I think I'm making it up in my head and everyone who's been dealing with me thinks I'm a nut job. Which I am but not about this thing.

But for the last three months I've been the injured runner, which is hard to explain to non-runners and runners who never get injured (those mother fuckers). I basically walk around in a cloud of malaise and when someone asks what's wrong, I respond with "I'm not running."

Now mind you, I totally understand I could participate in other exercise. And to that I say fuck you.

Seems like wearing underwear on the outside of clothing improves a person's mood. I may try it out.

Update from Depression Central

Running? Not quite. The hamstring situation is very confusing and bizarre. I've got a chiropractic appointment on Thursday to throw down the gauntlet. Might lead me to a "specialist" in Vancouver. Basically after several months of sporadic running, chiropractic treatments and two enormous bars of bittersweet baking chocolate, the hamstring is no better, and maybe even worse.

I couldn't NOT run on Saturday in 70 degree temperatures and at about a mile in, the hammie starts talking. Five minutes later it shut down. I'm identifying the pain/weirdness in colors. When it's serious and threatens to do something bad, it's like a nice dark maroon. When it's just a nag (all day, every day), it's aquamarine, like my birth stone.

So, yesterday was Oliver's 2nd birthday, which also marks our second year in the house and one year six months since I began my "comeback."

Jeffy, stop reading here.

I'm pissed that I haven't reached any of my running goals. I'm pissed that I feel like a quitter and I'm pissed that I have no core strength. And I'm really pissed that I'm not focused enough to get some core strength.

The end. So, I'm pissed, but I am moving forward. Please lord, don't make me become a swimmer.

They don't care. As long as they have stinky lion and glow in the dark bone pajamas, they're fine.

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!

2L2Q

I now have two running mantras that are supposed to help me through the marathon. One is totally lame but did help me through some bad runs.

Run through it--developed during a bad week of runs. Sometimes as I run I only concentrate on how badly things our going. My breathing, my legs, my speed, etc. Believe you me, if there's something to bitch about, I will do it! So during this run I told myself that I just need to run through it, because hopefully in about 3 or 4 minutes, I'll start feeling better. I know there will be some very dark times during the marathon, unless I suddenly become Wonder Woman and/or butterflies start flying out of my rear.

The other mantra came to me on Sunday, as I ran a very short trail run--2 Legit 2 Quit.

How does that song just pop into one's head, you may ask? Well, I'm not ashamed to say that I am probably the only person over the age of 33 who still watches the Real World. One of the guys on the show has been wearing a bracelet that says LEGIT. Which I totally need, BTW. [not so subtle birthday hint right here--march 23rd].


Tangent--why do new songs not incorporate hand movements? I mean, "I would Die 4u?" That's good stuff, people! And 2L2Q with its throat slashing at the end? Priceless!

I was in PA all last week because my grandfather was hospitalized and very sick. Needless to say I didn't run ONE DAY. Maybe because when I got there it snowed 4 inches, and then the high temperature was 22 degrees and my teeth froze in my head and I shouted "How can you live here???!!!" in the hospital parking lot (which is the tiniest parking lot on the planet).

So, after a week off, I'm back in the saddle, albeit with a sore hammy, but people, I am 2L2Q and am looking forward to completing this effing marathon with hair afire.

Peace.