Friday, December 9, 2011

Mini Streak

I have been on a mini streak for exercising consecutive days and it has felt good.  Getting up every morning from Monday to Friday is tiring but its great to get that workout in before the day starts.

Last week I was able to get up every single morning and make it to the gym for a workout.  This week, I made it four mornings before I called off my streak.  As you can see, my smile definitely was not there yesterday morning.  I was tired and grumpy but I wanted to run so I got up. 


This morning when my alarm went off at 4:45am, I decided that 11 days in a row of getting up to exercise was enough so I reset my alarm and went back to sleep.

 The other reason I decided to call off my streak is my knee.  ART has definitely been helping me to feel better and I am pretty sure the original pain I felt back in November is gone.  The Doc really worked on my hip these past few weeks to get all the scar tissue out that I had from my college injury.  In turn, I now have better extension through my hip which is a good thing.  The bad thing is that in my attempt to cross train instead of run, I may have caused another problem.

I have this very small fluid capsule on the patella of my knee.  At first it really bothered me and going down stairs was tough but over the last few weeks it has gotten better.  I am even able to run a few miles before I feel mild discomfort from it.  With all my internet research I cannot find anything about this, so I have no idea what it really is but some days it does cause pain especially when I lunge.  The lunge only hurts when my painful knee is the rear leg - when I lunge with my painful knee I am fine. But yoga (And of course ART) makes it feel better.

So there is still a lot of mystery left with my knee and it honestly is discouraging.  Anyone who has had an injury knows that you just want to run pain free and there are days when you think you never will get to that point.  I hate to see 2011 end this way so I know that I need to take a break.  For me not doing ANY exercise is the hardest thing.  I get grumpy and angry and not very pleasant.  But in an attempt for a bright future filled with running, it may be that I need to not exercise and find a way to be ok with that.

And so that is my plan.  Rest and then taking it one day at a time.  And also not doing any crazy new cross training that maybe my body is not ready for.  This is going to be tough.  But I am already one day into my rest streak.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

:( I'm sorry to hear that you are still having knee trouble. And I know how hard it must be to be forced to take a break, but sometimes it's for the best. I was sidelined last year after my first marathon in 2010, and it killed me to take off two months. But it gave me some downtime to plan my 2011 race calendar and get all mentally jazzed up for that. I am sending you tons of get well knee wishes!

Marlene said...

That is so frustrating! Good call taking some rest to let it get better. Keeping fingers crossed!!

I love those morning pics, especially yesterday's face.

misszippy said...

Oh I can completely relate to this! I know that when I've been injured, not kicking back and totally resting has slowed my healing process. It's SO hard--you want to retain any fitness you can. Take a bit of time for full rest and then ease back into crosstraining and see where it gets you. Hugs to you!

Allison said...

Sorry to hear you are still having knee issues. I hope some time off helps speed up the healing.

Kim said...

Ugh! If it's not one thing, it's another, right? What an odd thing with your knee. Rest is the right thing to do, but I hear ya on getting cranky when you aren't working out. I am the same way :(

Laura said...

It is nice to hear that you are persuing some rest to get over the knee issue.
I had some knee issues last year and it just...went away basically. My body is weird.

Christine said...

Oh no, hope you feel better soon. I think swimming would be the perfect cross training!

Anonymous said...

Great streak! Sorry about your knee issue....glad its not keeping you from doing what you want to do, though!

Page said...

Oh no! I'm sorry to hear about your knee. You're right though, just take it one day at a time and go to the doc asap!