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No toys left in my cot …

Who says toddlers are the only ones who have tantrums? I can proudly – or not so proudly – lay claim to a massive tantrum yesterday morning. It was so bad I couldn’t even bring myself to blog yesterday. I swear I must have thrown every single toy out of my cot!! Luckily it was a seafront cot … nobody else around, which meant there was no-one else in the firing line. Lucky for them lol

So I’ve been struggling with what I think is a most undeserved injury and it’s been causing me no end of stress. In December – after months of work building up my leg muscles in sheer defiance of everyone who told me ITB injuries were permanent – I really felt I’d won! I was running again – finally. And back to decent distances as well – my kind of Heaven. Now, I’m not talking marathons every Sunday – I’ll leave that to the LDLs (Long Distance Loonies) – but anything between 10 km and 20 km. Love it. Just love it.

I sprang into New Year with a host of new and exciting goals, since I’d just regained my long lost running feet. Week 1 – fantastic. Thrilling. Week 2? Niggles … in my supposedly ‘strong’ knee! I was forced to step back and thought I’d take it easy for a week. Switched from running to run/walks … no change. Anything over 5 km and the hurt would start kicking in. Against everything I believe in, I rejoined the damn gym (hate them hate them hate them) – just so I could get my hands on an erg. So I completed my 50 km target on the rower. Best of all, I visited the acupuncturist and he didn’t even ban me from running – just told me to go easy and throw in a few shorter runs. Yesterday, I was bouncing out the door – delighted to have permission to keep running. I was even so good as to do a run/walk, not wanting to push things. Testing … testing … all good until the 5 km mark. Kept going. So many times these things can be run through. I needed to make sure the pain wasn’t in my head – as it sometimes is! 6 km and I’m definitely struggling and down to Run 30 secs/Walk 30 secs. Frustrating. At 7 km I was brought to a sharp standstill with pain shooting up my quads (this was new!!). It was more like intermittent bad cramps but I could barely walk back to my car (and still had to run my Sunday circuit training). Luckily my knee brace was in the car!

But the physical side of it was nothing! Mentally, I just crumbled. What the hell was going on?

I’d just rediscovered the joy of running and it’d been taken away from me. I’d been so excited about my new goals and already starting my running build-up and …………. no more running? This was the only way I was ever ever REALLY able to de-stress, relax, chill, escape into my own world … and I couldn’t do it any more?

I was a mess! My best friend here texted me to say she wouldn’t make it to circuit training but hoped I’d had a good run! Poor friend! My reply was laughable (now, at any rate!!!).

So today …………….. time to Stop, Rethink, Reset some boundaries. Time to get back to base camp and prepare to try that climb again – perhaps via a different route. Nothing is impossible. Everything is doable.

It’s not a problem! It’s a challenge.

And the solution? Well, I’m not sure what the solution is, but I’ve mapped out a new route:

(a) No running for two weeks.

(b) I will not back down on my 50km/week target for January. I’ll do them on the rowing machine instead.

(c) Got to concentrate on strengthening quads and hamstrings and somehow get the balance right to give my knees all the help they k-need? lol

(d) No more tantrums. There’s always another way.

(off out to buy some new toys ….)

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