So with the start of a new year I'm looking back at my bucket list and seeing a few things I'm happy to have completed. I have no particular desire to do any more jigsaw puzzles or go on another police ride-along, or read Moby Dick again (though I'm glad I experienced those things).
There are, however, a few things I've realized I'd like to keep up with, like knitting (just started another scarf), reading the Bible (I need to get a new one that's in more modern English though, for daily referral), bartending (planning to volunteer at Wild Rice weekly starting in February), and, of course, running.
After three months of being inactive, I finally got around to seeing a physiotherapist last week (Mark Hampton in Coquitlam, who is awesome). Turns out I pulled my IT band after the marathon and have scar tissue on the outside of my knee, which hurts like hell everytime I try to run. (The technical term, according to the physio, is ITB Friction Syndrome, or lateral retinaculum.) Evidently I did not train enough. Four months training for a half-marathon is great, four months training for a full marathon is not enough. Which, in hindsight, makes sense. If the distance is double, so should the training be. Four months just wasn't enough to get enough strength in my quads and glutes. They're weak as kittens. But that's okay, I know now how to build up the strength for distance running. And one day, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, I'll be find myself again in the middle of a 42.2 km race, feeling as good at the end as I did after a half-marathon.
So I've got a walk/run program with stretching/strengthening exercises to do now and today I got out there for half an hour without so much as a twinge in my knee. And oh, endorphins, how I love you. What better way to feel good about being alive than to move your body and feel your heart thump outside in the world for even just half an hour?
Check out this video that so expertly sums up this very concept. The best Rx in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment