Whew, Happy New Year.
December flew by. Maybe it was because I spent half of the month driving to and from Los Angeles. That paid off, and I am starting the New Year relatively injury-free. As most people know, I took a nasty fall in November. (I tripped over cats). This led to some of the most serious pain I’ve ever had. For about three weeks, I couldn’t do much without pain.
Sitting.
Standing.
Walking.
Laying on my back.
Even outside of exercise, the only thing that felt ok was being in the pool and swimming. For nearly three weeks, I wished I could just live my life in the pool (not necessarily swimming but doing everything because it took the pressure off my hip and back).
Because there is so much going on in the hip, from bones, muscles, nerves, and the spine, my doctor (and insurance) finally approved an MRI. My MRI said I had a bone bruise on the ischium, and muscles surrounding my sciatic nerve were so swollen they were pushing on the nerve. The muscles pushing on the nerve were the source of my pain. The doctor said “rest would heal,” but to be honest, it wasn’t my favorite advice. I know rest would help, but it felt like I needed “more than rest.”
I opted to go see and get my muscles worked out from Rich at Vision 4 Enrichment (I cannot recommend him enough) and release the tension on the sciatic nerve. It was a lot of driving but well worth it, and I finally began seeing results.
As we move into 2022, I am starting mostly healthy and ready to run again. I say mostly because my leg and hamstring are still slightly stiff, but I’m not longer in pain. I think I need a couple more sessions to work out the muscle.
As always you can follow me on Strava too.
Miles run: 68
Swimming: 83,420 yards
Rest Days: 4
Range of Paces: mostly untimed but 9-13 minutes
Races: None 🙁
Thoughts:
I missed two races I wanted to do: the La Jolla Half Marathon and the Run Laughlin Half. It’s not the end of the world, but I was excited about them.
Between November and December, I took roughly a month completely off of running. Thankfully I could swim, so it was nice to log some serious mileage in the pool. I don’t ever think “swimming fitness” translates into “running fitness,” but it was nice to be able to get movement in. Not only log mileage, but it got me out of the house. Working from home is great until you find yourself injured or not leaving the house for days on end (a topic for another day).
Onto some positives of the month:
With more swimming than I’ve done since college, I began setting some post-collegiate PRs. Swimming times are fairly meaningless to most, but I “old lady PRed” most of my swimming times. To give you an idea, I would probably be competitive with myself from middle school. I never expected to swim that fast again after leaving swimming in 2011.
- 50 yards: 33 seconds
- 100 yards: 1:09
- 200 yards: 2:30
- 500 yards: 6:34
- 1000: yards: 13:53
So anyway, as I leave December, I’m looking forward to moving out of the injury phase and into rebuilding fitness phase. I have some races planned for January, and I’m looking forward to seeing how my body responds and how I can move forward from them. I do plan to continue swimming since I am enjoying that.
Posts from the month:
Shoe Reviews:
Hoka Clifton 8 Shoe Review
Favorite Trail Shoes of 2021
Salomon Predict Soc 2 Shoe Review
Brooks Launch 8 Shoe Review
New Balance Prism v2 Shoe Review
Asics Tri Noosa 13 Shoe Review
Which Carbon Plated Hoka Shoe is Best?
New Balance Fuelcell Elite 2 Shoe Review
Asics Cumulus 23 Shoe Review
Gear Review:
Skratch Labs Wellness Hydration Review
Skratch Lab Energy Chews Review
Skratch Labs Hyper Hydration Review
ERW Active Sleep Review
Fauna Audio Glasses Review
PNG Electrolytes Hydration Drink Mix Review
Avanza Skin Care Review
Avoalre Socks Review
Posts:
Favorite Road Shoes 2021
But all I can do is look ahead and look forward to hopefully making progress in 2022. I won’t declare 2022 my year because that’s what I did in 2020. LOL.
Questions for you:
How was your training in December?
What is an activity you like outside of running?