Riding the Pine...

I submitted my request to be put on IR to our Miles Game team captain on Runners World Online. I've run 4K in three months. I didn't think it was fair to keep posting zeros when the team could use a player in my spot to actually post miles. There has been a shortage of players for the Miles Game recently, but I hope the team can get a new player in my place.

I think I'll be going back to the doctor as soon as I can get an appointment. I've read up on my pain and what my symptoms are and I get so totally overwhelmed. Should I see a chiropractor? I'm not a fan of them, but if it'll help, maybe I should see one. Should I see a different sports medicine doctor? Do I need cortisone shots? Do I need surgery? What about a physiatrist? So far I've just booked to massage therapy appointments for my back, at my physiotherapist's request. In other news, the exercises are coming along. The pain isn't really improving or going away. The dry needling appointments are pure torture... I try my best to do as much as I can.

In the meantime, I've started cooking. I made quiche on Saturday from a recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry. It was a pretty good recipe, using brown rice as the crust, and with a head of broccoli, roasted red peppers and swiss cheese. Yum!

On Sunday I roasted a chicken, following another ESBM recipe, the Roastess with the Mostess. I have a hard time doing roast chicken properly. It never cooks through, despite following the directions and using a meat thermometer. I think our chicken was still frozen on the inside, despite the fact it sat in the fridge for two days. The marinade was really tasty - lots of lemon and thyme flavour that carried through the meat.

I decided to stop wasting chicken carcasses, so I promptly cut off the leftover meat and tossed the chicken into water, along with some herbs, onions and carrots. I left the stock to simmer for 4 hours. I'm hoping to transform it into chicken soup tonight!

Same old, same old.

Not much is new with me. I'm not running yet. I'm still going to physio, though not much has changed. The pain is no longer in my foot, but in my back, pelvis and hips. She added in ultrasound to dull the back pain, which I absolutely love. Last week she buttered me up with the ultrasound and then did some dry needling... that was a bit of a shock to say the least!

I've been good about doing my McKenzie method exercises, which she calls cobras. It's a set of 10 yoga-like stretches for my lower back that I do lying on the floor. I even brought my yoga mat to work so I can do them in my office. But, I need to get better at doing the other exercises.

So I'm bribing myself: if I do the exercises every day for a week, I can buy myself the stainless steel waterbottle I want at Lululemon!

During my layoff from running I'm working on getting our house in order. I've started shredding old documents and organizing my filing. It's almost a spring cleaning mission! We bought a new cabinet for over the toilet, which has added some much needed storage to our bathroom. I'm looking forward to painting the bathroom in the near future, too! I really hate the colour in there... it kind of looks like pablum. I'm also trying to finish off some projects that I started and never completed... like lining all the shelves in our cupboards.

At this point I'm trying not to think about running.

Panic

I had a mini-meltdown last week. There, I said it.

I'd researched my injury (injuries?) and was starting to panic. What if I have something more serious wrong with my back? I saw all kinds of terms such as slipped discs, herniated discs, nerve entrapment. Lots of medical terms that would cause a state of panic in the most seasoned runner.

After almost 3 months on the IR, I'm starting to feel frustrated with my lack of progress. I feel hopeless, like I'll never run again. Sadly my husband doesn't understand how I feel. I can put it into words and he tries to understand, but he doesn't. It doesn't help that the pain keeps coming back. I do the exercises almost religiously. I go through the torture of ART and dry needling twice a week but the pain isn't going away.

Running is my stress management technique. It keeps me sane. It's part of who I am and how I define myself. So, naturally I feel lost without it. Now I'm doubting all my race plans and I feel like a failure as a runner. I know I shouldn't, but I do. It wasn't so bad when the weather was awful, but now that it's sunny and warm, I feel like I've been left out of the running party.

It also doesn't help that some people feel the need to offer their opinion on my injury. When they ask how I'm doing and I tell them, they want details. Then when I give details, I invariably get "How can you back cause your foot to hurt?" - what they don't know is that I've previously injured my back twice, once when I was 18, the other when I was 26. Overall, what I'm going through is just not something that's easy to explain, nor to understand. Which leads to more soapboxing by friends and family.

But I trust my physiotherapist's diagnosis more than I trust random people with no medical qualifications. My parents keep telling me I need to find a new physiotherapist for a second opinion. The thing is, I trust her completely. I know she's a diamond in the rough. She's well-educated, up-to-date on all the latest treatments and techniques. She's not milking me, as so many often do.

I need to remember that trust. I kind of lost it at physio on Thursday. She saw me at my darkest time, when I was doubting everything: myself, her, my future as a runner. My PT tells me that the fact that the pain has moved from my foot into my back is a good thing. I can't say that I agree... but I'll take her word for it.

Weightloss: One Month Down!

I vowed to lose weight after I returned from Hawaii. I've been fairly good at counting my points on WeightWatchers and am seeing results. So far I've dropped almost 7 pounds! I need to be better on the weekends, that's for sure. But I also won't see big weightloss numbers as I already went through the weightloss exercise once. I actually want to see smaller numbers so that I'm not losing muscle tone.

I've been making most of the meals - we've only ordered in twice since I started. And even then, I've made healthier choices. Like, St-Hubert Quarter Chicken Dinner with white meat instead of a meatlovers pizza. We had pizza last two weekends ago at a friend's place and I wasn't enjoying it. So I didn't eat the second piece. Talk about victory! And I've been good about bringing my lunch to work instead, so I don't succumb to temptation in the food court.

I do need to make more meal plans though. I've done a good job of picking out a couple of recipes each week, but I need to plan more. I tend to get in a rut where I make the same recipes, over and over again. DH tends to get sick of certain meals this way. Gee, I wonder why!

We loaded up on chicken breasts and ground turkey at Costco last night, so more healthy meals are on the way. Fajitas are on deck tonight.