Pushing Through...

My surgery got scheduled for April 27th, my legs were still hurting and I was 4 sessions behind on my goal to exercise 3 times a week for the year, so I decided on April 20th to work out every day for a full week to get caught up. I did the bike (which is really boring) and the elyptical (which I hate) every day. At the end of the week I got on the elyptical machine and realized that it was actually a cross trainer which I'd never used before but Mike raves about. It was actually really good! No impact to the legs and it felt much more like running. I really feel like this may be the perfect answer to how to stay 'in the game' when I'm having leg issues. On the day of the surgery I even did the cross trainer in the morning since I wasn't sure how long I would have to rest for. At the hospital that day, one of the RNs actually said 'you must exercise' when she saw my blood pressure stats which I was thrilled about too! The surgeon told me not to work out for a week but I managed a session on the cross trainer at the weekend just fine. I ran 3.25 miles in 32:13 on Monday and did 5 miles on the cross trainer at work in 54 minutes this week too. My legs feel great after being laid up from the surgery and I feel back on track finally!

Relay for Life 5K

I felt completely unprepared to run a 5K with all of the leg problems and frankly I hadn't been enjoying running lately for some reason. I had a minor surgery coming up which was on my mind a lot too. After taking a full week off I ran one full 5K at the gym the week before the race and tried to lower my expectations a bit. I ran with Mike and Emily again and the race itself was really disorganized. It was supposed to start at 9 (at which time it is already too hot in my opinion) but didn't actually start until 9:40. I wanted to just run the whole distance to be honest and not get shin splints. After a reasonable start I stopped running at 25 minutes and walked for a while. I just felt so hot and miserable. I managed a sprint at the end and came in at over 34 mins. For now, I am just going to have to celebrate the fact that I did it. It seems like this running thing is like taking 3 steps forward and 2 steps back sometimes. It's hard on your body and you get injured from time to time. And when you rest from injury it's really hard not to see a slip in your times. I really need to push through this...