Before I get into today's latest injury... heres a bit of back history as to the others I've had and been fighting with.
After my first marathon in Oct 2009 my right hamstring was pretty tight. I never really gave it the time to heal as I started running again three days after the marathon and ramped back up to where I was in a couple of weeks. So I also fought through that one again throughout my training for my second marathon. If it weren't for Lou Ann Botsford my sports massage therapist I swear I never would have made it to the starting line. She has magic hands that seem to heal and repair all. I highly recommend her services! Worth every penny and her knowledge of athletes and anatomy is pretty impressive. She's quite good at what she does. Which is getting athletes back out on the field. But I digress.... so after the second mary in March of 2010 just a few weeks ago I said I was going to rest for two weeks before I did anything. I was going to let my leg heal properly and then start training again.
And then my foot started acting up. Which I think I covered here already... but the short version is that I was told by my podiatrist that I have a Morton's Neuroma as a parting gift from the DC marathon in my right foot which is essentially a swollen nerve between two bones. But the plus side is the doc cleared me to bike, swim and do anything else except run for a month and then if all goes well I'll be fine to start running again.
GREAT!
So I went out and bought a bike so I can get back to excercising regularly again. I've since had two rides on the bike. A 16 miler and a 21 miler. Both at mild to moderate effort. Nothing crazy. Mostly me getting used to the bike. Yesterday after the ride something in my calf area was really tight. I stretched it and iced it and it was stiff but ok. This morning it felt stiff but ok and I decided to head out for my ride anyway and see what happened. If it hurt I would stop. It didn't hurt, and I didn't stop. Now it feels even tighter and is quite sore. So I'm back to icing it.
I can't say enough how frustrating this is. All I want to do is start excercising again and get moving on my quest to get into Triathlons. And yet everything I do seems to cause an injury. Ok... not really... but I'm at the peak of my frustration currently. I think all athletes have days like this one. Where your just mad at the world. All you want to do is workout and be healthy and your own body is fighting you. Its aggrevating!
So now I'm not sure what to do. Stay off the bike for a couple days? I'm thinking I'll wake up tomorrow morning and do yoga and see what happens and how my top of calf/back of knee feels. Actually its kind of hard to tell where the tightness is. It feels like its centered on the back of my knee, top of the calf bottom of the hamstring. I think its the calf though based on how tight it feels when I stretch it. If it feels ok during yoga then I'll go for a relaxed ride with a friend of mine tomorrow. If not were off for coffee and the tent sale at Casters bike shop. I suspect we'll both end up at coffee somewhere complaining about our injuries as she has been fighting her fair share of them lately too.
Oh well... I'll be happy to lay off the bike and lay off the running if I can swim without injury. Really. I just want to be healthy enough and injury free enough to start training in earnest, and I want to be able to do SOMETHING in the meantime. I want to do this right, and I want to do this injury free.
If anyone has made it to this part of the post... thanks for listening to me vent. Much appreciated.... and if you've ever been an injured athlete you know exactly how I feel right now.
Oh on the plus side.. this morning there was no shooting pain in my foot which means the neuroma is hopefully starting to heal nicely. We'll see though... still its encouraging.
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