On Limitations

Hello, lovely blog world, and happy March.

Also, happy pi day! My students weren't nearly as excited about pi day as I was, but oh well. A lack of sense of humor just may be one of their limitations, although I'd like to think we all have a sense of humor about something; it's just different for each person.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about limitations lately, because my body has been serving me up a healthy serving of them lately.

*cue flashback to that time my ex wrote "bitch, you broke it" in response to some things not going as planned in my life a few years back.*

*cue me acknowledging that flashback, then letting it go.*

Despite my ambitions lately, my body does not seem to want to cooperate with me, and I've been getting really frustrated with it.

First, I tore my meniscus last spring and then exacerbated the injury with moving and not resting it. Luckily, physical therapy helped quite a bit, but I've been feeling the familiar twinges as the temperature and humidity rise and everything swells up.

Then, Stormy dog ran full steam into my bad knee last September, and I tore...something...in my hip where my IT band meets my joint. Again, physical therapy cleared that one up, and--knock on wood--I have been pain-free in that hip for a few months now.

Combined, those two setbacks cost me three months of running and two months in the gym.

Then, slowly, slowly, I climbed back from the injuries. I upped my cross training game. I ran a 10k last month. I was invincible again.

...yeah, except for the part where I was never invincible to begin with, which my body really wants to remind me of as often as possible.

*cue the pain I've been in for the last two weeks straight*

It started, I think, with my hip. Out of nowhere, the other side of my hips started pinging some pain at me, in a completely random part--not quite hip, not quite lower back. Kind of as though my love handles decided to wreak havoc. It's worth noting that I am SUPER packing in the hip department, so there's a lot of surface area to identify, but wherever the pain started, it's now radiated up and down my left side. On good days, I just feel a stabbing pain in the original spot; on bad days, my ribs ache to the touch.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, and my hubris got the better of me. I ran hard. Really, really hard--way too fast for way too long. And by the end of that run, I felt the pain in my right ankle; I had pissed off a tendon in a big way.

Having just used up all my physical therapy allotment on the OTHER treatment, I'm kind of SOL here other than trying to self-diagnose. So it's been a lot of little runs instead of big ones, a lot of RICEing and resting, and a lot of trying to exercise patience and feel out what is okay pain and what is not okay pain.

A month ago, I had a plan for the rest of spring: Run the Crescent City Classic in March and the Magnolia Meltdown in May. A month ago, I was on track with training and felt great.

But that's not today. So today, I'm setting a new limit: no Crescent City Classic. Luckily, I never officially registered, so I won't lose any money, but it's definitely a bummer. I'm trying to remember that limitations don't mean weakness, and I sat down with my priorities in order to decide how to move forward. The most important thing to me is to finish a half marathon before my birthday, so that's what I'm turning my sights to: an 8-week training plan that will allow me to go up incrementally and hopefully not push my limits too hard.

I also started Fit Girl Boot Camp today, which I'm hoping will take my mind off of my disappointment and give me new strength training goals. Strength is *so* important. With strength comes the ability to push those limitations out.

But for now, pi.