Yesterday I was feeling discouraged about running again. Actually, for the past couple of weeks I've been feeling discouraged about running. In a fit of delusion moment of optimism I registered for a half-marathon in January, but we had so much snow and ice this winter that almost all of my runs were on the treadmill. I do not have it in me to do the long runs for a half-marathon on the treadmill, so I changed my event to the 10K.
It's going to be a slow 10K.
I was trying to pep-talk myself into accepting the slow. It's better to finish a slow 10K than to sit on the couch wishing you were faster. There are benefits to just showing up. But yesterday after a gentle 2-mile run I started to hurt.
My pelvis has been twinge-ing at me all this year, but this was not a twinge. This was my sacrum with a sensory semaphore, saying, "Bad idea, Jamie!" After a couple of hours it hurt too much for me to walk to work.
I found some exercises that helped; ice made things better too. But I was exasperated. Why do I keep hurting myself? Who hurts herself in the sacrum, all of things? How did these particular genes stay in the gene pool? Wouldn't you think they'd have been gobbled up by a saber-toothed tiger? An arthritic amputee saber-toothed tiger, even? I tried to console myself with the thought that my ancestresses were the ones outsmarting the saber-toothed tigers instead of outrunning them, but...no.
As I lay in my enlarging damp spot last night (caused by melting ice on my sore sacrum, not anything that should spur you to avert your eyes), I was thinking about my need for a better strategy. My college roommates and I are doing a mud run together next month, and the run part is as much as 7 miles long. We're not going to be tearing up the course. "I know what we should do," I thought sleepily. "We should just rent a golf cart."
At least there won't be any saber-toothed tigers.
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