Injury Hurts the Pride and Makes one Feel Lame

So for the past 6 days, I have been battling injury in my left foot at the base of my toe bone. a little lower than my toe joint and on the sole of my foot, occasionally with pain shooting onto the side. I spent the majority of last week praying and resting – praying that I would be able to run my race saturday. I went down to Woodbridge with my running buddy and close friend, Michelle from irunwithit. We went to the VA Runner near Potomac Mills to pick up bib, jersey and whatnots needed for the race Saturday morning. I even picked up a pair of injinji toe socks, medium padding, with the hopes that I would have enough support and padding to run on Saturday morning. I went home and put on compression socks and iced the hell outta my left foot using awesome 110%, Play Harder gear. Side note and brief pause in the story, I absolutely LOVE 110% gear! The gear itself does wonders and has ice pockets for your trouble spots! I have capris and socks! WONDERFUL! and the company itself and their social media team, all very responsive and friendly! AMAZING! Even Aldy gets down on 110% gear!

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Alas, the swelling was not going down and the pain was only increasing. I originally thought that it might be tendonitis as I am not shy towards all forms of arthritis. I may be turning 30, but due to the amount of soccer (contact sport of awesome) that I played (25+ years), I have abused my body to the point that both knees and my right foot both have arthritis. Anywho, so when I got this problem in my left foot last week I was a little shocked that 1) I didnt feel or hear it when it happened and 2) that it wasn’t my right big toe joint, which I have had TONS of problems with. (surgery, arthritis, etc)

So I woke up Friday with my gut saying don’t run and my heart saying run. I was planning on giving it a shot at trying the course but by 5pm Friday, I knew it was hopeless and that I might end up injuring myself further which would only mean being out of running for longer and with one race on April 28th, another on May 5th and then Ragnar and MCM in October, I knew I needed to sit this one out so that I could make sure I was able to do the rest of em.

How I determined that I needed to sit it out: put on the injinji socks and another pair and then put on my Mizuno Nirvanas — prolly one of the cushiest and most comfortable pair of running shoes ever! and I tried slight jogs… still hurt :-/

Brief aside: so I know that I am prolly not going to be able to express my feelings accurately as I have been trying to explain em to people and i can’t do it very well… but apparently i am going to try anyway…

On Saturday morning, Jerid and I got up super early, got dressed and went to pick up Michelle for the race. We got down there mad early and ended up killing time in the ihop right next to the start of the race. There were tons of other runners doing the same thing! hahaha. anyway, Michelle was getting psyched up. word on the street was the coure was a grueling 11 miles of rolling hills in VA!

Lemme just say that I am going to amend some parts so that everything is kosher, but Michelle is awesome, she finished and she got a pass to get early entry into MCM! it was an interesting experience, spectating although, instead of telling you about my experience, I am going to try and convey to you the emotions that go through an injured party’s mind when they can’t do something. Background: I was raised to be competitive. I am competitive with everything I do, which is good and bad but neither here nor there. I have played soccer since I was 4 and at one point was playing on 3 teams in high school — two travel and then high school varsity. I got burnt out after a while. I took a break after freshman year of college and relaxed. I didn’t start playing again until 2011, not because I didn’t want to but because there arent a lot of adult leagues in the middle of nowhere of Oklahoma…. but point being I am competitive. I have played on broken bones and pulled muscles and stitches in my hand just for love of the sport and the game I dedicated so much of my time to… so it took a lot for me on Friday to make the determination that I should sit this race out. (YES, I AM that stubborn!)

What I am trying to convey above: while I will be eternally grateful for Michelle for helping me out, hooking me up and generally being awesome, there is part of me that is disappointed in myself that I am not doing this journey on my own…. and I guess one lesson in life would be sometimes you need help even when you arent ready to admit or dont want to admit that you do, even if you can admit it out loud, you really need to admit it to yourself — the you’s here really mean me’s – hehehe.

running friends for life!
Michelle and I at the Disney Princess Half on a magnet that she got for us!

buddies for life! hehehe

anyway, thanks for helping me even if my injured pride is all like in everyone’s faces but mostly mine. I go to the doc on Wednesday. I am hoping for no boot! I feel like I had other things to say here but theyre escaping me at the moment! Ah well, happy Monday!

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