Stranger & Slower

It's been a good first day. I was nervous about how I'd feel this AM after being off the prescription nerve and pain medication for two days now. But apparently it wasn't making much of a difference because I didn't feel worse. Good news because the stuff was keeping me up all night long. I'm not fun when I have insomnia.

   I got my son on the bus and tried not to think about how much I was feeling intimidated about getting back into the gym to start my PT recovery. Even though it's only been like two and a half weeks since I've been able to do any physical activity, it felt like a lifetime after just wrapping up a running streak that lasted over 600 days. I tried to put all those non-running days behind me as I drove to the gym. 

   Saw some of the regulars and caught everybody up on why I've been so absent recently. Knowing head shakes were exchanged all around. Further proof that as endurance athletes age, we occasionally break too. Everyone of us seems to have similar stories of crippling injures that sideline us for a period of time. Forefront on my mind was that how hard I work at my assigned PT exercises would determine how quickly and completely I'd recover and get back to what I considered normal. I was anxious to get started because it would mean getting better sooner.     I said my good byes and instead of heading outside for a run, jumping on a treadmill or hitting the weight area like usual, I went over to the open mat stretching area which I've jokingly nicknamed the "place where old distance runners go to die". In place of a Garmin on my wrist or weight-lifting gloves I carried copies of my exercises and a looped stretching rope. Not the usual equipment indeed.     The Y that I belong to usually isn't too busy in the mornings. But of course the mat area was busier than usual on THIS morning. I was hoping to score a spot in one of the corners out of everyone's way where I could take my time and become familiar with the different exercises. But I had to set up smack dab in the middle. Dang. I'm one of those people who likes to be inside my own head when I train. I hated being in the middle like that. But I put my headphones on, cranked up my running playlist to a point when I couldn't hear the background noise of people socializing and began to wade through my exercises.    I'd already been through the entire routine in the PT center with my therapist yesterday. But to do them yourself, making sure that you're preforming them correctly, for the correct number of reps and sets requires more concentration. I felt like a gigantic, awkward pink elephant the entire time. Some of them were easier than others. The ones that had me doing any kind of a back bend were very painful. But my therapist said that's part of the deal and I'm no stranger to the "no pain, no gain" mindset. Surprisingly I sweated my ass off in the airy room. Instead of breaking the exercises up into two sessions a day I opted to do one complete run through followed by a second. That way my nights will be freed up. All in all it took me about an hour and a half to do them both. Hopefully as times goes by I'll get a little more proficient and less awkward which will reduce the time frame. Felt very strange to not do my usual things.    Along with the exercises my therapist recommended some walking too. No running just yet. Not that I think that I could do that comfortably right now. My son was in school and my wife was asleep, she works midnight's. So I didn't have anything better to do other than work some more. I wasn't sure how long I'd last after putting my lower back through the ringer. But I was willing to give it a good try. I hoped up on a treadmill and managed to walk at a little over 2 MPH pace for an entire hour. I knocked out a little over two miles. A far cry from my typical hour long distances and much slower than my typical 9:00 mile pace. But surprisingly for as bad as my lower back felt at the beginning, it felt better at the end! Apparently the walking is a good idea after all.   The rest of the day was spent icing my lower back a few times, drinking tons of water and trying to eat a little bit more of a healthier diet. It was stranger and slower than I'm used to. But it was a workout. Small victories right now...