It’s totally no coincidence. Lately I’ve been more injury prone. I don’t really give my body enough time to rest between activities. I can’t help it! I’ve got obligations! All I can do is do my best to try to take care of myself in between. It’s not always easy. On Monday I did a lot of heavy squats. I even set a new personal best for myself that night. I didn’t stretch properly after the fact. As a result my glutes, hamstrings, and inner thighs have been ridiculously sore. Today, two days later, I’m still feeling the effects. I’ve been meaning to use my foam roller on my muscles just to try to work out any kinks but it’s only now that I’ve gotten around to it. That in itself isn’t injury–it’s just soreness. Thing is, having that discomfort is throwing off my other activities. Today my running group started hill training. After I did one rep as I was walking down hill I started feeling soreness on the left side of my right knee. I tried starting a run a few times after I experienced the pain, but each time I had to stop again. I managed to push through a second climb, but after that I became even more cautious. Fellow runners were asking me if I was OK. I said I wasn’t and that I was just going to watch it as I ran up for a third climb. One runner told me that I shouldn’t just watch it: I should walk it. ”You know better!” It’s true. I do know better. If it was anyone else I’d tell him or her to walk it out. Why should I be different? So yeah, I’m sure my body hates me at the moment. I’m going to take it down for a while. I can’t risk having things degenerate to a state where I’m out of commission for an extended period. Nope. People are counting on me.
Tag Archive: injury
Warrior heart
After all this time, I really do have a good sense of my limits, and when I can push myself. There is a fine line that exists between fatigue and being completely tapped out. Knowing when I still have gas in the tank is a useful bit of self-awareness. Thing is, it’s all too easy for me to just let pride get thrown into the mix, thus making my judgments a bit off.
Here I stand today (I guess lie down is more like it) having to take a rest from running due to a bit of a tough workout I had on Monday. The class on Monday started out well. I discovered that I was finally able to jump on top of a 24″ box. I was also able to increase my five rep max deadlift weight by 20 lbs. Good showing, really. Then came the nasty workout from the depths. The task was a ladder of 25 – 20 – 15 – 10 – 5. We had to complete those reps for pull ups, push ups, then broad jumps. So we had to do 25 pull ups, 25 push ups, 25 broad jumps, then 20 pull ups, 20 pushups, 20 broad jumps, and so on. Knowing that there were a shit load of pull ups to do I ended up adding an extra band to the bar to help me up. As this workout progressed, I knew that I was off. The pull ups were extraordinarily difficult that day. I’m sure the volume had something to do with it. I had to break frequently. For the broad jumps I challenged myself by picking a longer distance than I normally would. Kind of a bad mistake. My issue was that I got sloppy on a few of those jumps and landed awkwardly on my heels. I ended up jamming my left Achilles as a result. My body started compensating somehow and that ended up making my right knee ache. Immediately one of the coaches notices that I was off and told me to stop and switch to squats. I did a quick head to toe check and decided that I wanted to continue as I was. He insisted I switch, but I gave him a look that basically said that I wanted to finish what I started. I knew that in order to do so I really have to be careful with my jumps. If anything were to happen to me it would all be my fault. It’s not like the coach didn’t try to stop me, right? The whole thing was just tough. I just wanted it all to be over. I did finish, but well after everyone else.
Upon finishing I sat on one of the boxes and started lamenting to the other coach that things are just getting tougher for me. Now that I’ve inserted running back in with this, it’s all been very difficult. He pointed out that it’s likely that I just haven’t been giving myself enough time to rest between all the training I’ve been doing. This is likely true. He told me that everyone goes through slumps and periods where it’s like nothing is improving. As he talked about that I noticed a tear or two starting to fall down amidst all of the sweat. I was just visibly angry with myself. I wanted to perform somewhat well, but my body wasn’t letting me. Deep down it was frustrating, and perhaps scary to think that I was incapable of managing. He told me that I really needed to take a break to recover. Little did he know that my ankles and knees would actually require it. I really wanted to say that I was fine but it was obvious that that would have been a lie. I mean, yes, I improved in some areas, but I was really down on myself for this other component. By no means should I have been walking out of there feeling defeated, but I sort of did like an idiot. As I passed by the front office on my way out, the other coach saw me and made it a point to congratulate me. In passing he called me a warrior for having pushed through. I didn’t know how to respond so I kind of grunted uneasily. As soon as I stepped outside, I finally started letting the emotions out. As soon as I was in the confines of my car I let myself go before composing myself again for the drive home.
Yeah, yesterday was tough. I really need this time for healing myself and resting. On some level I guess I have the heart of a warrior. I will continue to push myself and work hard. I just need to take care of myself more. I know that seems to be an ongoing theme for me, but I need to keep reminding myself. It’s all too easy to lose sight of the fact that this is necessary.
Resting for my own good
Monday’s workout was a bit of a tough one for me. It involved a lot of jump rope and box jumps. I didn’t do so well if only because skipping requires more coordination than I would have wanted. I went home encouraging myself to just work harder at my next workout. Sounded all well and good, but it wasn’t until Tuesday that I finally noticed that I seem to have done a number on my left Achilles tendon. As I got ready for work I was feeling some discomfort, so I brought some muscle cream. I didn’t care if my desk area had a blast radius of odour. On my way to the office I found it rather difficult to walk up the stairs. It’s like there was a sharp stabbing pain at the affected area. My body, in an effort to compensate, was doing something weird causing my right knee to be achy. All in all I wasn’t feeling great. I vowed to rest my legs well such that by the time Wednesday rolled around I’d be in good condition to head back to CrossFit. Well, when Wednesday came I found that my Achilles was still in pain. Bad!
So, my sensible mind was telling me that I needed to spend some time just letting the pain heal. This was butting up against the other part of my mind that was actually trying to get me to ignore the injury and just go for it. Imagine, the voice was saying things like: “Oh, chances are the that the workout won’t involve a lot of jumping around. You can still lift.” Heh, I really was close to going up until I posted about my dilemma on Facebook. The big consensus was that I should rest. The Achilles is one part of the body that’s not to be messed with. Someone was just telling of someone they knew that ruptured their Achilles and ended up needing 8 months to recover. Crazy! So with all of that in mind that’s why I decided to take it easy on Wednesday. Ah, but I was actually feeling antsy about doing so. What was I missing out on? Was I ruining my momentum? All the same I knew that I was doing it for my own good. Now after the fact I don’t regret it at all. Why put my health at risk just to feel like I’m super-human? Please. God knows there are plenty of other ways to feel that way.
My mouth is a war zone
There was a point earlier this week where I was super-stressed. I truly felt like I was in a haze of sorts. I was not in a good mental-state. I think as a result of the stress I accidentally bit the inside of my mouth in several places. And in my efforts to brush my teeth around the affected areas I think I injured myself further by stabbing myself. And on top of all that I also bit my tongue. So basically my mouth is a war zone. I need to spend some time figuring out how to deal with it (besides heaps of Anbesol) because I can’t eat properly, I can’t smile properly, and I can’t talk properly. Basically, I’m a mess.
Stupid stress!
Magic dagger
I feel like someone stabbed me in the shoulder with a magic dagger that just vapourized shortly after.
Having trouble moving. Every time I move my head my neck and shoulders spasm.
Driving in might not be the best idea. Wonder if this warrants a sick day. :-/
An aching man
Just a few words. I’m currently working through a bit of an injury. My right knee and left ankle are aching as a result of plyometrics class on Saturday. I think I landed hard on one jump causing my knee to start aching. And my left side has been compensating for the problem on the right and as a result my left ankle has started to ache too. This morning, I wasn’t entirely sure how much it actually hurt, so I just came to run club anyway. I went in with intentions of completing the whole 18K that was on schedule. As I started going though, I knew something was off. The sidewalks were covered in thick snow and slush making for a lot of uneven running. My pace slowed down to significantly. I kept telling myself that I’d keep going and turn around if I felt it was appropriate. By about 4K I got to a section that was downhill and slippery. I didn’t have any power in my legs. I just didn’t feel like I could continue without putting myself in danger. That’s when I made the call to turn around and walk back. So running four kilometres isn’t so bad, but walking that same distance took forever! I tried starting up a run again a few times during that walk back, but I couldn’t maintain anything. It was pretty rough. So yeah, I’m trying to rest the legs and recover quickly. I’m not going to let this prevent me from racing in March.
That’s how I roll
So let’s address the thing about the injury in this entry. Sunday morning, I was out for my 10K run. There were no immediate issues as I went along. Along the route, there’s a somewhat large hill that I enjoy having all of the people in my class go up. It’s a bit of a nice challenge. Anyway, close to the top of the thing, I ended up rolling my ankle and collapsing. The gutter and the road pavement were uneven where that happened. Basically I just misstepped and my left ankle bent in a direction it’s generally not supposed to go. I felt to the ground in pain. I took a moment or two to regain my thoughts. At the time I was running with two others and they immediately came to my aid. Judging from their reactions, the fall must have been somewhat spectacular. My ankle must have bent in some really ugly manner. I don’t know. I wish I had a camera.
So, after getting back up, I started walking. They were insisting that someone get a car to pick me up. Apparently running it off was not an option. I wasn’t ready to make such a decision, so I told them that I needed to walk on it first to see how I felt. Yeah, the ankle wasn’t feeling all that great. There was a fair bit of discomfort every time I put pressure on it. I was scanning my mind for options. I knew that running is more about forward motion than lateral movements. I knew that if I had to do lateral movements I’d be out entirely. After a few moments I told them I’d do the remaining 3K or so back to the store. It was a bit rough. I had to spend some time figuring out my next moves.
No, it doesn’t seem swollen, but I’ve been icing it regularly. I bought an ankle brace to introduce a little bit of compression. I’ve generally been resting it. I need to figure out whether I can run on it on Tuesday night. I want to be able to do so because it’s our first night of hill training. We’ll see. I mean I won’t do anything silly, but…yeah…ultimately pain will slap me in the face anyway if I do something entirely dumb. Nature’s great that way.
Lightly battered
Yeah, I’m backdating this entry to fill in yesterday’s date. I was sitting on the couch pondering about what to write about when I basically fell asleep. It’s really a good thing my couch is so darn comfortable. Probably a good thing thatI’m minimizing movement. See, my left hip is bruised, my left knee is in pain, and generally I’m feeling a little battered, like shrimp tempura. I did an improv show at a dive bar last night, and a lot of my scenes involved me getting shot, or falling to the ground. Every time I fell, I really went for it. The common sense thing to do would have been to soften the landing, but no, I really just collapsed where I was. I ended up just limping from the bar back to the station.
I’ll be fine, really. Nothing an Advil or two can’t dull. The things I do for a laugh, I guess.
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