That mild groin pull from yesterday…well by last night it was really throbbing and sore. Today I made the decision not to run again. Ugh! It felt like having to make a decision to move cross-country to take care of an ailing great aunt or something. I actually cried last night as I bargained in my head “if it doesn’t hurt in the morning then…”. Well this morning my friend texted me at 7:30am (I’m off from work on Thursdays and would normally be running at that time). He asked if I felt like going to IHOP for pancakes. Well look at how the universe works? My favorite “i feel sorry for myself” food is pancakes! So I immediately said yes and off we went. I went with just regular pancakes. A stack of 3. (450 calories without butter or syrup). Something happened somewhere between the last pancake bite and our drive home…I realized that:
a) there are people with truly debilitating ailments right now. I remember how a fellow blogger is in the midst of an extremely long flare from Crohn’s disease.
b) not being able to run DOESN’T mean I can’t be active at all
c) those pancakes were delicious.
So I decided to get into my running attire (like a true dork i put on the exact outfit I wore to my most recent marathon where I PR’d), strap on my Garmin, drive to my favorite running route along the beach and……WALK! That’s right I walked out the small-stuff-that-felt-like-big-stuff-but-was-really-small-stuff! And I sweat probably just as much since it was 82 degrees with a 1,000% humidity. I am lucky that this injury is still mild enough that it isn’t causing me to limp or anything so that I could walk.
After a lovely 4.25 miles and a few quick inhales of the intoxicating honeysuckles, i was on my way home feeling more in control and less stressed about the not being able to run stuff. I’ll do this again on Saturday and once more next Tuesday and then hopefully I’ll be back in action for next Friday when i’ll be visiting the Left Coast for vacation!
So my words of wisdom today are this—have a moment or two to acknowledge what it is that making you anxious or stressed. Feel it for a bit. For me it was the good cry before bed and the simple act of friendship with conversation over breakfast that got me to feel it. But then grab hold of that feeling and squash it like a bug by coming up with a plan. A good solid plan to stop the downward spiral. For me that plan was a long walk. I might not have been huffing and puffing but it was the best mental workout i’ve had in a while. And that is sometimes more important that the physical part.
Question: Where is your favorite place to go to unwind or decompress?
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