The last couple weeks has been a whirlwind of activity! A week leading up to the 5K, and a week being sidelined by Pain. We will get to that in a minute, first a little back story…
Last time I wrote I still had a week until the “Run Like a Fool 5k.” I had planned on running a couple times that week and then resting thurs/fri before the race Sat morning. For whatever reason (I honestly can’t remember the excuses I probably made up), I didn’t end up running at all that week. So come Saturday morning, I was supposed to run 3.1 miles having only run a max of 25 minutes straight equaling a little over 2 miles (and I had only done that once). Ugh… but I was well rested! ;)
It was a beautiful morning, sunny and a little windy… so glad the rain didn’t show up!
It was definitely motivating to run with a group, and my mother-in-law! I knew she would be faster, since she had already worked up to the distance, and had run this exact run a couple of times… but it was nice to see her blue sweatshirt bobbing way out in front of me! J
I finished. Without stopping! It was long… but not quite as hard as I thought it would be. Definitely wore me out though! I finished (not even close to last) with a time of 37minutes and 42 seconds. Nowhere close to what I used to run in high school, but hey… I finished! And now I have a time to improve upon!
We celebrated afterwards with a soak in the hot tub, and some mimosas! So relaxing…
After that we enjoyed a lovely baby shower, and I got to get new running shoes!! Check these puppies out…
I got them at South Sound Running in Olympia… and if you ever want to find the perfect running shoes… go there. They check out your old running shoes and look at the wear pattern, they make you run in each set of shoes you try on, and they find the best fit for you. And if for some reason they get it wrong, there is a 30-60 day (depending on the shoe) return policy… bring back the shoes, even if you have run in them, and they will find another one for you. They are awesome!
Now to the pain… I was fine all day Saturday, felt like I might be a little sore from the run, but I felt pretty good. Sunday morning at 4:30am I woke up in extreme pain across my back. Now I have had some pretty awful back cramps in the past, so bad that I couldn’t really walk… but this was so much different. Just pure pain and in a very specific band across my back, a 3-4 inch section right below my shoulder blades. When I got hungry too, the pain radiated to that same area through my abdomen. And it was so weird because I could differentiate between my sore muscles, and this area of pain.
To make a long painful story shorter… it was awful all day Sunday. Tried painkillers, ice, heat, mom’s muscle relaxers, and Aaron tried to massage it… but nothing helped. I laid in bed all day Monday, and it felt a Little better, so Aaron drove me to work for my four hour shift… and I about died by the time I got home. Tuesday, feeling worse than Monday, I went to the doctor. He poked around, decided I had probably just had a pretty severe muscle spasm in one of my muscles directly connected to that area of my spine (at least that is what I understood from what he said, lol). He prescribed me some different muscle relaxers, and put me on a regimen of those and some different painkillers, and said if it didn’t ease up in a week or two, to come back for xrays. The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday I took it pretty easy, went to work… but Aaron drove me so I could stay on the muscle relaxers which made my reactions pretty slow. And it finally started to feel better.
Thursday it was more of just an ache, so I took the day and went to see my niece. Saturday and Sunday were a little more active with my Father-in-law’s bday party and a full shift on Sunday. Today, Monday, I’m feeling much much better. It is no longer a band of pain, but I can still tell exactly what muscle is in the spasm, and can pinpoint that tightness in my back. Hopefully one of these days, it will let go completely so I can sleep better (I’m typically a side-sleeper, but that makes it worse, so I have had to sleep on my back which makes me not sleep as well) and feel like I’m not limited.
Needless to say, I did not go running all last week. Today, feeling the best I have, I went for a run. I went back to week 7 of the Cto5K, and did the first workout: Walk 5, run 25, cool down walk for 5. In the middle of the workout I did stop a few times when I felt my back tighten up. But after a good little stretch I would get going again. I think I probably ran a total of 20 of the 25 minutes. Hopefully, I can run the full thing next time! And hopefully the next time I write, the aches and pains will have subsided completely!
Knock on wood!
Sam J
