You’ll hear a lot on my blog about injuries because I’m always getting them! Nothing major, and nothing that has ever required surgery. But those nagging kinds of injuries always trip me up. Did I mention that I weigh 225 pounds? (on a good day) That doesn’t help!
It’s a viscous cycle. I can’t beat 4:30 because I’m not fast enough. I can’t get faster unless I run more. When I run more, I eventually get injured. Rest, rest, rest. Start over.
Last week, I had a great run on Thursday night – strong 5.2 mile loop near my house, about 9:15 pace. I noticed my knee was not feeling quite right, and sure enough, I could locate a particular pain point when feeling around behind the right knee. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I always call it tendonitis – pain at the end of one of those tendons you can feel behind the knee. In the old days, I would run on the pain for awhile until the pain got worse, rest for a few weeks while hoping it would go away, and then wonder about why the pain didn’t go away. Then I finally got wise to feeling around and locating the specific pain point, and then icing the spot. That does wonders. A good regimin of ice for a few days generally gets rid of the ‘tendonitis’. So anyway, I felt a little tendonitis last week after my Thursday night run, and did not run over the weekend. Been icing and resting – figured I’d be good to go by Monday or Tuesday.
Ahh, the gods have other plans. Sure enough, in the shower this morning, while shampooing my head, I felt the all too familiar ‘crack’, and sharp pain under my left shoulder. The muscle under my left shoulder is most definitely ‘pulled’ – no running for me for a few more days.
I have a long and storied history with various back issues – lower back, neck, shoulder, etc. Lower back pain is the worst – you can’t sit, you can’t stand up, every step is a giant pain. Hard to get in and out of bed. Neck pain is not quite as bad. Walking and sitting is fine – but you can’t turn your head or bend down depending on the reason (like tying shoes). Shoulder pain is the best of the back pains, as it does not prevent sitting, standing, walking, head turning, etc, but still comes with it’s own very annoying pain until the muscle strain subsides.
Grrr.
