Recovery

Well, that took longer than expected! Today is the first day I've laced up my running shoes since my 5K on the 7th. I was super sore the next day, but by the third day out I felt like I might be able to run again. Or my legs and hips felt that way, anyway -- the rest of me, not so much!

Unfortunately I came down with a wicked cold and cough just as I was recovering from the race. It started out feeling like allergies, which made sense because there is a bunch of stuff in the air right now that I'm allergic to and I was out running around in it (instead of on my treadmill) for 45 minutes, plus the time my husband and I spent at the pre- and post-race activities that morning. Within a couple of days post-race, though, it was pretty obvious it had morphed into a rotten cold. Ugh! Just my luck!

Anyway, after taking it very easy for a week, I'm finally feeling much better today so I hit the treadmill again. I only did one mile, and only ran about half of it (at a very easy pace). My right hip, which had really bothered me during the race, was a little bit twingey when I first got started, but by the time I'd finished my mile the hip was feeling great and so was I!

I don't have any other races on the horizon right now, but I am really happy to be running again! With the stress of the holidays, I know my treadmill is going to get a major workout over the next few months. I'm so grateful to have my climate-controlled, steps-away-from-the-bathroom, no-hills-unless-I-want-them treadmill at this time of year, although I certainly won't rule out some outdoor runs when the pollen levels aren't too bad.

Onward!

Not feeling it

So I'm back on the treadmill after my oral surgery hiatus and I seem to have lost my mojo a bit. Monday was my first day back at it and I ran intervals for 2 miles, yesterday I did a brisk 5 kilometer walk, and today I was not. feeling. it. At all. I ended up only running intervals for about three-fourths of a mile and then walking for a bit to cool down. Better than nothing, I guess, but not at all what you would call a good run!

Monday my right knee was a little twinge-y so I wore a patellofemoral strap and everything seemed fine. Tuesday it was my right hip that started feeling wonky around the two-mile mark, so I slowed my pace and stretched the heck out of it afterwards. Today the hip was fine, but my left shin was acting like shin splints were imminent. Argh! It's always something. And as I've said before, fibromyalgia amplifies the body's pain signals and sometimes makes non-pain sensations read as pain. So I never know if I have an actual tissue injury or if the fibromyalgia is taking some random soreness or muscle spasm and amping it up to eleven. Very frustrating!

My original plan was to do 2.5 miles of intervals today. It became obvious after half a mile that there was no way that would happen. In addition to my shin hurting (which came and went as I ran and feels fine now that I'm done) I just felt so sluggish and unmotivated and blah. Maybe that 5K walk yesterday was a bad idea, who knows? I spent most of my brief run arguing with myself about whether I should push through it and do my planned 2.5 miles, but in the end I decided to call it quits for the day. I reminded myself that even though I'm off the heavy-duty pain meds, my body is still recovering from something fairly traumatic and I probably just need a little more time to heal from that before I'm back to my usual form.

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it!

The F word

Take a giant dose of stress, throw in a 3-night lack of sleep, shake vigorously with several days of low barometric pressure and what do you get? A fibromyalgia flare! For those of you who've never had the joy of experiencing one, I can only describe it as a full-body toothache meets the flu. You wake up in the morning feeling as though you've been beaten with a baseball bat, and every time you move, every muscle in your body exhibits the raw-nerve sensation of biting on an abscessed tooth. Exercise is completely out of the question. Surviving it is pretty much the only goal.

This latest flare was mercifully brief. It hit Monday evening, laid me low Tuesday and Wednesday, and finally started to subside sometime yesterday morning. On a scale of one to ten I'd say it averaged around a 5. The most frustrating thing, of course, was not being able to run and work toward my goal of running a (slow) mile without stopping, which I was hoping to reach by the end of this week.

I really didn't feel like running this morning, but since I was sure the flare was 99% gone, I forced myself to hop on the treadmill. I had no plan in mind whatsoever -- walk a slow mile? Try to run just a little? Who knows? But once I had my earbuds in and the Prodigy exhorted me to "Smack My Bitch Up" (look for a post about my running playlist soon), I felt like trying a couple of running/walking intervals like I did on Saturday -- running for 30 seconds, then walking for a minute. I was thrilled to find that not only did it not hurt, it felt fantastic! So fantastic that I didn't want to stop. I did two miles altogether, including warm-up and cool-down. That's almost two-thirds of a 5K!

So my goal has changed. Forget running a mile without stopping. That hurts, and my body doesn't like it, and it was an arbitrary goal anyway. I'm just going to add intervals until I'm up to the distance I need. What I'll do after that, I don't know, but that is my new short-term goal -- build up intervals until I'm doing at least 3.1 miles total at a time.

Alrighty! Onward and upward!

Back in the saddle

Well, that was fun. The low-grade fever I came down with on Wednesday evening ended up lingering for several days, forcing me to stop running altogether while I got over it. You haven't seen grumpy until you've seen me sick, and when you add not being able to run into the mix, well. It wasn't pretty.

I've been fever-free since yesterday morning, so this morning I hopped back on the treadmill. What I really wanted to do was pick up where I left off and run my heart out, but I knew that would be stupid with my body still in recovery mode so I took it easy. I did five laps, or 1.25 miles, altogether with a half-lap each of warm-up and cool-down and then alternating half-laps of moderate walking and speed-walking in between. I didn't want any impact on my muscles, joints and whatnot after just having gotten over a fever, but I didn't want to just mosey either. It definitely felt like I was working but my body seemed to handle it okay, so tomorrow I'll throw in some running intervals and take it from there.

I'm not going to lie, I'm getting a little nervous about the 5K in September. My training has suffered way more setbacks than I would like. I've been checking online for local races coming up this fall so I can line up another one down the road if I have to punk out on this one, but it really will feel like failing if I don't even try! Fingers crossed that I can reach my short-term goal of running a mile without stopping by the end of July. If I can do that, I think it'll really boost my confidence.

Human after all

Well, I solved the mystery of yesterday's crummy run. I'll spare you the list of symptoms, but it appears I've come down with a mild bug of some sort. I run a low-grade fever at the drop of a hat -- I guess that's a convenient signal to slow down -- and I know from experience that I can either heal from whatever ails me or exercise, but not both at the same time. So I skipped the treadmill altogether today and will see how I feel tomorrow. With luck, I won't be sidelined for too long and will at least be able to get back to some easy run/walk intervals soon!