Pushing Through

Medically, this week has been horrible. On Tuesday morning I woke up feeling fine, without a care. By 10:30 AM I was bent over in pain and nauseous to the point I was dizzy. By some miracle I made it through the school day, got home and plopped on my bed. I felt miserable. No volleyball that night, even if I hadn't hurt my hand. By the way, I'm thinking the pinky is just badly jammed, but the wrist is definitely sprained. I don't think it's too bad, and it should heal quickly. Just annoying to have to deal with wearing a splint again.

So, Wednesday morning, I felt a little better than Tuesday and got ready for work as normal. At breakfast though, 2 of my 4 kids complained of sore throat and headache. I thought, "Please don't get me sick. Not now." We all went to school/work, but one came home early. I was tired and not feeling great all day, but survived. When I got home, the plan was to go walk a mile or do some strength or something so I didn't go two days straight with no workout.

I ended up just doing 10 minutes at level 7 incline on my elliptical - at snail pace of 3.5 mph. My wrist hurt too much to keep going. I did another 20 minutes of some non-weighted stretches and strength.

I again fell into bed exhausted. This morning, I woke up with a sore throat. Then my husband said he had a sore throat too. If we all end up with strep...

I called my doctor because I knew I was not 100%. I felt like maybe my problem was mostly a sinus infection coming on and just a bad week overall, which sometimes happens. It could be the stress from last week catching up, or one of a million things that triggered it. After a quick conference, I went ahead and took a Mucinex D - which meant I had to drink a bottle of water every two hours all day long. Frequent bathroom trips at school. Check. But, the congestion and sore throat went away. I did have a headache by the afternoon, but I at least made it one more day at work.

Then, it was decision time. Do I run? Basically, my answer to myself was, "how can I not at least try?" So, I headed out knowing that these two (cold) miles might well end up being a walk. The first 0.25 I felt winded and exhausted. But by the time I hit 0.75 I was feeling better and got into a groove. I made it to 1.5 in that same slow, steady groove. I took a walk break and set out to finish running.

Mile 1-12:43, mile 2 -13:03. It's funny, because I honestly thought they were opposite. Mile 1 felt so much slower and mile 2 felt so much more consistent. Oh well.

I tried to run as much as possible with fewer walk breaks, but since I'm still not feeling great, I also tried to keep myself at a slower pace. I was pretty happy with how long I was able to keep running, especially with not feeling well. I honestly think if I had been feeling better than I did today, I could have slowly run the entire 2 miles. I'm glad I held back, though, because I don't want to feel worse. Heaven knows I don't want to be told to stop running either.

Overall, I'm glad I pushed through and ran today, but I'm also glad I was able to keep it real and listen to my body. I still feel frozen in the 12-13s and that 10 is never happening again. But, I am finding little nuggets of things to be happy about with each run. Right now I'm just praying we all stay healthy and can get to the Kids Run on Saturday at the zoo. I'm also SO thankful to see little green shoots in the flower beds that promise spring will be here sooner than it feels like at the moment. Those stalks pushing through their winter beds are a reminder to keep pushing through. Brighter days are just ahead.