It’s been a rough long while for me running-wise. So I just want to say, in case you have any doubts, that I love love LOVE running! I wish I could honestly blog about the gloriousness of working out every single day because running is glorious!
But in all honesty, the journey through injury and recovery is a long and arduous one…
Back in November I shared Wise Words on Days Off. Starting in May, there was Hope and Physical Therapy and The Comeback, but I got Overexcited: Too Fast, Too Soon. Then I wrote some very wise words about How to deal with aches and pains when you’re getting back into running. And then there was my First Track Workout (yay!), shortly followed by A Story of Running AWFULNESS. It's been quite the saga, to say the very least.
And now I have another to add to the saga – let’s talk about Running Smart. Because I think I’m a pretty smart person…but oh man! When it comes to running, apparently I am dumb dumb DUMB! While thinking I’m making good training decisions, I make bad ones. Even when I think I’m being smart, and taking it easy, and heeding my own good advice…I’m often not. So here I am, back again like a teenager’s mom, telling you to make good choices!
There’s just something about loving running and wanting to run so badly that clouds your perspective on reality.
SpeedyKate and I realized this as we both had to drop out of last night’s workout. We are supposed to be intelligent…but when we voiced our problems, the absolute absurdity of our logic (or lack thereof) became apparent.
Me: Well my shin’s been hurting for like a month, and my hamstring isn’t feeling too hot, and yeah I kinda limp around my apt. in the mornings…but for some reason I thought I could run mile-800-mile-800 tonight! WTF?
SpeedyKate: I had to stop a couple times during my morning run today because of pain…and after the first mile tonight I was kind of limping…and now my shin and my foot and hamstring aren’t feeling too awesome…so after 3 repeats I thought I’d stop.
Both of us: Wow…when I say that out loud I hear how absolutely ridiculous I sound! What was I thinking?????
We know that we shouldn’t run through pain. We know that we should stop before limping forces us to. We know that a day off now is better than weeks off later.
We know, we know, we know, but somehow logic and reason escape us in matters of running.
I realized last night that when I’m completely honest and voice the state-of-Mollie aloud, it’s a lot easier to make good choices. Once I told SpeedyKate about how I felt and why I had to stop, it made sooo much sense! From now on I’m going to try doing that. And if I need someone else to weigh in and tell me that I’m being stupid, I will tell SpeedyKate.
So here’s to running smart and being honest with ourselves!
And if you have no idea what kind of running mentality I'm talking about, read Jess's article: Man v. Mileage.
