Over the past several months, I've been dealing with my own proverbial onion. I usually like onions- cooked and in stuff. Well, then there's onion rings. Mmm. Then again, pretty much anything battered and fried is scrumptious. Okay. Enough. My metaphorical onion with my injuries is really large and has lots of layers. The "fun" part has been peeling away all those layers to get to the actual problem, the root of it all.
There's a muscle called the iliopsoas. It's the main hip flexor. It attaches to the front of your lower spine and then runs down, underneath all your gut organs, and attaches to the front of your hip bones. Due to poor hip posture and weak inner abdominal muscles (the outer ones are strong), my lower back muscles (the ones on the actual back side) have tightened up. Then my hip joints have gone loosy-goosy to compensate. Add however many number of years, 3 babies, and wham, we get a whole series of lovely problems that all mask the root cause. Oh what fun!
Enough anatomy. When you love running, racing, and seeing how fast you can get, being put on the sidelines with something of this magnitude plays with your psychie. A lot. Going from 10-15 miles being easy peezy to eeking out 2-3 can be extremely demoralizing. It almost feels like a waste to bother getting your running clothes on for such a short distance.
You see other runners and wonder how much farther than you they get to run. Seeing those with hydration packs on really punches you in the gut (let's be abundantly clear- wearing a hydration pack for short runs is pointless, especially races. Aid stations, people!). You want that freedom too, but running that far would cause pain so great as to put you out of commission for normal day-to-day stuff. You try not to let the Emotional Eating Monster haunt you like it used to years ago. Besides, who wants to buy larger sizes cuz they're depressed and can't run as far as they want? Yeah, pathetic. So, you do your best to keep your pant size the same. Vanity is real, my friends. You find a way force yourself to take things one at a time, make each run count, do your physical therapy exercises, and count your blessings (through your teeth at times).
For me, thankfully my life is busy. Sometimes it feels like a curse, but taking care of my 3 little boys and husband has helped keep my mind off the fact that my body is not where I want it to be. Another grace from God with it all is the timing. That may seem crazy to say, but I mean it.
A year and a half ago my oldest son was diagnosed with leukemia, when my youngest was 7 weeks old. Yeah, Life basically pinned us against the wall and turned everything topsy-turvy. Thankfully the kind of leukemia my son suffers from has a 90%+ cure rate. It does involve more than 3 years of treatment, but it's not going to take his life.
As our lives changed, I clung to running like never before. I couldn't control hardly anything else, so I trained my butt off. It felt good. Really good. The first 8-9 months of chemotherapy were a doozy. After that, things calmed down a lot. Phew! If all this injury crap had reared its ugly head in the middle of all the chaotic chemo, it would've crushed me. No joke. Given that my injury was slowly building up over time, I'm extremely grateful it waited just a tad longer to explode.
Over the past months as I've slowly added miles (currently at 5). Focusing on one thing at a time has been my mantra. I'm usually the type that likes to plan 5 years in advance, or maybe 20. So taking things one at a time has been like stuffing a turkey through its beak. It's been a struggle to say the least. But like I said, I'm grateful my little family has kept me occupied. At times I've wondering if I'll want to take up so much time running again in the future- if I'll actually want to run marathons and half marathons again. Being a mom is where it's at!
A few weeks ago I took my kids to a park I run by a lot when running 8+ miles. It's not a park I'd taken them to before. As I turned on to the street, I realized how much I miss long distances!!! Words cannot describe how my heart ached to run 8 miles or more, to feel the wind against my face, to feel the exhilaration of the runner's high. Guess that answered that! I will be running marathons again. Some day. Yes, being a mom is still the ultimate. But I can do both- in time! Ha!
These days my goal is my favorite half marathon in June. It's currently December. How strange. I used to be able to do a half marathon on a whim, and get a decent time. Not these days. I may not even be up for a full marathon until 2018. It all depends on how things come together. A large part of my anguish is I'm not getting any younger (I know, like any of us are right?). 40 is fast approaching and I have PRs left to chase. I kinda feel like after 40 it's too hard. That whole aging thing. Getting old BLOWS! So there's that.
Sometimes I just want to know what to think of it all. I strongly believe there's something to be learned here. I'm searching to know what it is. Not only do I want to be a better runner when all this is said and done, I want to be better in my heart. I want to be a better Me.
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