Thank you all for your comments on my Reflections: vegetarianism post. I felt a little weird talking about how being a vegetarian didn’t make me feel healthier, but I’m learning that every diet is different for everybody. I also realized from reading comments that perhaps a big part of the reason I don’t feel very different is because I didn’t eat much meat over the last 2+ years overseas, and when I did, the vast majority of it was unprocessed. Eating chicken patties every day is a lot different than having chicken once a week that’s killed practically in front of you and never saw a chemical or additive in its life! I think that while meat eating may be different for everyone, switching to a more natural diet is a healthier choice across the board—whether or not you include meat.

***

One of my blog commandments is not ever saying “sorry for being MIA,” because I find it very silly that anyone’s life is possibly disrupted when a “healthy-living” blogger doesn’t post. We all have lives, people, and I’m not sorry for that. But yet I still feel the need to explain that the reason I haven’t posted in a week is because I had several wordpress disasters which resulted in not being able to update my blog in several days… and then my genius web-savvy friend Jeremy fixed it. The man is amazing. If you need any web work done, hire him : )

Anyways.

I’ve dealt with my fair share of running injuries in the past. Whenever I pounded out a few miles in college I’d get runner’s knee and call it quits. The nadir was august/September 2008, right before leaving for Africa, when I’d signed up for Nike’s The Human Race 10K with a couple of friends. I didn’t train at all, and then the week of, ran a 5-, a 6-, and a 7-miler three days in a row after not really running for… months. Needless to say, during the 7 I jacked my knee up so bad that I had to hobble home. But not being well-versed in running injuries, I assumed I was just sore and ran the 10K on the knee two days later. And by “ran” I mean “hobbled with a brace and left barely walking.” The next few weeks were miserable. Walking hurt like crazy. I experimented with crutches. I bought several different braces. I got on a plane to Africa still having extreme pain in my knee. It was six months before I tried to run again. And run again I did. I remember how happy I was when I ran one hour without stopping… a full year after the 10K. I was so proud of myself.

(the fateful race that almost ruined running for me… with my friend katie, who’s one of my marathoning inspirations)

Time passed in Africa and my runs got longer. At one point I ran 30 kilometers on dirt African roads and I realized I could maybe someday do the marathon thing. About a week later, my IT band had had enough. Once again, I hung up my running shoes.

It’s understandable, then, that I went into training for the Big Sur marathon pretty terrified of getting hurt and not being able to cross the finish line (or even show up at the start). And over the 16 weeks before the race, when I really started running again after a couple of very easy months, I went through a ton of “growing pains.” One week, my runner’s knee would flare up like crazy. Another, my feet would be falling asleep. The next week, my IT band would be screaming at me. The worst was my MCL giving me problems in long runs that left me feeling like my left leg would detach from my body below the knee and run pell-mell the other way. A couple weeks before the marathon, I started experiencing nerve pains down the outside of my right leg that would almost make me tear up. (I still have that, especially when sitting in a car for a while).

Despite all the pains, I never had to stop running. I had aches and stiffness and soreness and pins and needles and everything else but I could always still run. It always felt temporary. My hip hurt a little during the marathon, but not so bad. I was really happy I had apparently gotten through the phase of being injury-prone.

A few weeks ago, in mid-June, I ran 16 miles and was a little sore, but nothing of consequence, really. All was good. I was starting to build back up for 26.2 on 7.31.11 at San Francisco. I talked to my mom at the bus stop about how I felt really lucky because the first time around, SOMETHING always hurt, but now I felt like my body was used to distance running and I wasn’t getting hurt.

Two days later, I ran an easy, fun 6 miles in Golden Gate Park before work. All was fine. Then when I stepped off the bus, I could barely walk. I talked about it on the blog soon after it happened and here’s the update.

The last 2.5 weeks has been an exercise in frustration. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I figured I just tweaked something. The next day I hobbled to work again, and two days after I set out on my planned 18-miler expecting to maybe run through it and I’d loosen up. I was wrong. I set out on a long run all but one weekend since New Years and here in mid-June I’d met my match. After one mile, I called it quits.

Things were getting worse. The pain had started in my upper thigh and then spread down to my knee, which was throbbing, and then to my foot, which stung with every step. Walking was painful. I made it to the gym Monday through Friday, devotedly, to jump on the stationary bike or the elliptical. I’d jog a few steps to make it through a traffic light and almost collapse from the pain.

Yup. I was officially sidelined.

The last two weeks were extremely challenging in many ways. I didn’t want to give up the race. I was angry at my body for giving up on me. I was frustrated because I didn’t know what was wrong. I felt pathetic when I tried to make up for my 20-miler the next weekend by sitting on the elliptical and the stationary bike for three entire hours, which did nothing but make me depressed.

I went to a chiropractor, thinking it could be a nerve thing, but he said he didn’t know what was wrong and it was probably muscular. I had pulled my quad—as far as I know. It started in the upper quad, and spread most likely due to the overcompensation that happened as I was walking, causing the pain to spread down the leg. I was walking with a noticeable limp for days, so it makes sense.

This injury was also a great thing to happen to me.

While I felt bad for myself at times, it was also a big wake-up call for me. I was getting to the point where I was kind of resenting running a little bit. I wasn’t heading out for fun, for a rush of adrenaline, because I knew I’d feel more energetic and happier all day. I was headed out because I felt like I HAD to. My running shoes were becoming more like a ball and chain rather than a gateway to happiness.

I had become complacent.

Getting sidelined was the jolt I needed to remember that RUNNING IS A PRIVILEGE. I continued to see hundreds of runners all around this active city, San Francisco, and I resented them. I was jealous. I wanted more than anything to be sweating and panting and generally miserable for just a few little miles. It’s all I wanted.

It took getting injured to make me crave the feeling of running again.

Over the last week or two, I’ve been icing my quad at work (sexy, let me tell you), stretching a little, popping ibuprofen (which I normally am loath to do, but here, it really did help). On Tuesday of this week, I ran a mile on the treadmill. I was sore and in pain, but it felt more like a muscle protesting, relearning, rather than something that was damaging my body.

Thursday, in Colorado on business, I ran three miles on the treadmill.

I HATE the treadmill. I hate it more than many things out there in this world. And on that treadmill, two weeks to the day since I got hurt, I was never happier to be on that thing. I even tried to take a picture to commemorate the moment, the moment being “the only time I’d ever be raving excited to be on a treadmill.” This was not a good idea.

I came home this weekend for the fourth and decided to try a run with my mom. We ended up going out yesterday and today. Both times my quad hurt for the first 5-10 minutes, protesting, aching. Then, it smoothed over.

Yesterday I ran 5.5 miles and today I ran 6.5. after both runs I felt fine, but I’ve been sore at night. Though that could have to do not only with the quad, but also the fact that I haven’t run in 2.5 weeks, and that it’s 90 degrees out instead of 60, and that I’m dying of dehydration, and I’m running on trails on hills of death.

Either way, these two runs have been awesome. Despite feeling a bit like crap and kind of wanting to die from the heat, they’ve taken me back to remembering that running is fun. I don’t need to fight for 8-minute something pace, 11 minute slow, fun miles while stopping to chat is fine for me. Going long isn’t needed, I want to work my way back up.

I’m going to try to run 13-14 tomorrow, but I don’t know. I am going to listen to my body. I don’t know if I’ll be able to build the mileage back up quickly. I don’t know if I’ll make it to the starting line of the SF marathon. I don’t know if this will go away or get re-aggravated. I don’t know how long it’ll be before I run pain-free again.

But here is what I do know: running is a privilege. And I’m extremely lucky. We all get sidelined sometimes. That’s not what matters. What matters is that my body has given me the ability to run. Not only run, but a body that works, that walks, that perseveres. I’m lucky. If I do make it to the starting line, it’ll be a fun run. I thought SF would be MY race. It’s my city, I know the route, I know the hills, I know the personality. I planned to take 15 minutes off my Big Sur time, to do the race in style. Now if I make it there it will be a fun run, and that’s okay. If I make it to the start line, I’ll be grateful. I’ll use the 5 hours, the 6 hours if need be, to revel in the anticipation and excitement of running, to just let it sink in, to enjoy the experience and the journey rather than fighting for the destination. I know there will be other chances. I know I only have one body and that I need to take care of it the best I can. And I know that above all, running is a gift, and when I start taking it for granted maybe it’s time to take a step back—whether I chose to myself or not.

Have you ever been sidelined? What were the good and bad parts?

SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

• My Unconventional Road to the San Francisco Marathon
• Sidelined
• This is it: Big Sur Marathon is here.