We’re Back!

It has been a long month. A whole month of dealing with a sprained ankle and bronchitis and after a whole month of being too depressed to write anything I am back… and yes I am still running.

Last time I wrote I left you with a bruised and swollen ankle and although I could not run I was sure that it would only be a week and I would be back on the schedule. A week later I realised that there was more to it and went for x-rays to find that my ankle was in fact badly sprained. The doctor told me that it was a repeat injury from the sprain I had the year before and that the running had most likely triggered it. What does that mean for someone training for a marathon? Well it means that I needed to give it time to heal and then wear an air-brace every time I run in the future.

The idea of having to rest it was both a worry and a relief at the same time. I was relieved that I was not just overreacting and that I was going to have a set period of time where I could rest, recuperate and finally sort this problem out. Yet I was so worried that this would never a hundred percent be sorted out and that perhaps running was not the best idea full stop. Perhaps I should train to swim the English Channel instead…

Initially I was determined to keep my fitness level up and so headed back to the gym to do light cardio on the elliptical and lift weights, but within a week I had fallen sick to the winter cold and I had no energy to even get out of bed. The cold spread to my chest and so just walking up the stairs left me wheezing and catching my breath. I was beginning to feel like a walking, or better a limping ailment and I hated the feeling of self-pity that surrounded me.

On the up side I was still losing weight, but could feel that this was muscle rather than fat loss and I was dreading how my legs would feel the moment I started running again. I realised at this point that it is one thing to decide that you want to start running, to set targets and goals and go into it with such excitement and enthusiasm, and then there is restarting something when you were not even half way through.

This is why I could not write about it, because the only thought that was coming out of my head was, “We would have been doing the final practice run now”. And it is not as if we were staying where we were and could carry on as if nothing happened. For every week we missed we had to go a week back. It reached a point where I was so full of self pity that I thought we would just have to start over from scratch.

And then a cliché came to mind… When you fall you pick yourself up and start again. So what if we would have to start from the beginning and build ourselves up again! At least this time around we would be more prepared and perhaps we would progress quicker. It would be hard and would possibly take more determination than before, but if we were up for the challenge in the first place then we certainly were up for the challenge now.

So this week we weighed in and restarted our runs. I was not deterred too much that I had returned to 94.5 kilos. I was at that weight for so many weeks I guess my body is used to it. We thought we would see how we went and surprised ourselves by being able to do the 5 minute run/walk, so instead of being at the beginning of the 2 mile training program we were in fact half way through. That is not so bad… 4 weeks away from doing the full 2 mile run.

It has been a long month and I am so glad to put it all behind me.

And looking to the future, last week was the Tiberius marathon and my mentor ran the race in 3:19. Other than being unbelievably impressed and proud of her, I am re-inspired. Tiberius 2009… the FIRST marathon we plan on running. I hope to see you all there cheering us on!