Defeated

No running and no chocolate make Berry Girl irritable and twitchy.

No running, because the hip was out again at my second physio appointment yesterday.

No chocolate, because of the above problem.  We like to see the scale stay where it is if it will not be showing decreasing numbers.  If I’m not running, then I’m not burning extra calories, and then I’m potentially getting larger.  So no chocolate.  Or, at least, less chocolate.

*sigh*

I already took a week off running due to a chest cold, and was itching to get back to it this week.  And then I went to physio, and wouldn’t you know it, the hip is out again.  Not quite as bad as last time, but enough that Physio Girl *suggested* that I not run for a while.

Then Suzy had to go and corroborate that advice, and so I’m obediently NOT running or taking the stairs two at a time or doing lunges or any other large movement that might possibly involve my hips, so as to give the hip time to settle into it’s new happy place.

I think I’ll have to go re-read Suzy’s posts of things-to-do-while-not-running…

Well, shucks.

I’m all snuggled up with a fleecy blanket, feeling sorry for myself because I have not run since Saturday due to a nasty phlegmy cough that I am determined will not turn into bronchitis (which it probably will thanks to my asthma).  Because I’m jonesing for a run, I’m reading all the posts on Daily Mile and my favorite running blogs to see what all I’m missing out on (a lot, crap) when I click on MCM Mama’s new post and find that she’s passed on an award to me!

Made. My. Day.

THANKS!  I totally love her blog – I often use her running to motivate myself, which I hope isn’t weird since I don’t actually *know* her.  The Internet – it does strange things to us.  Like blogging.

Anyway, I’m supposed to list 7 things about me, and then tag 7 other bloggers:

1. I think that ice cream should be a food group.  Ben & Jerry’s “If I Had 1,000,000 Flavours” in particular.

2. I can sneak 3 spoonfuls of said ice cream from the basement freezer before the boys start to wonder where I am.

3. I routinely kill houseplants, yet I love to garden.

4. I am hooked on my Adidas Supernovas.  Totally.  And I was a die-hard Asics fan before this.

5. I don’t like reading books that I haven’t purchased (ie. borrowed).  Because then I’ll have read it, loved it, but won’t want to spend money on buying it because it is now  a book that I’ve already read.  I like owning.

6. I love doing hill work.  That little tiny muscle in my butt? Notsomuch.

7. I would like to write something someday that is bigger and more important than my “Letter to the Editor” at Runner’s World that ended up being the “Rant of the Month”.  Although I was immensely proud, I think I can do more.

And now I will tag:

Chris at My World of Boys (private blog)

Suzy at The Runs

Prairie Chick at Prairie Prologue

Tracey at Operation Tightpants

sorry, it’s not 7, but it’ll do.

Sometimes, it pays not to know

There was a story in my last Canadian Running magazine called “Live and Die by the watch”, where the runner writing the story wiped out hard in the middle of his run, and before he’d even rolled over and assessed the damage to his body he’d taken the time to stop his watch.

He goes on to relate the story of another runner-friend with a similar experience: “he had slipped on some ice and fell in front of a moving bus.  He had to scramble and literally roll onto the sidewalk to avoid being hit, and yet, before the length of the bus had passed him, he had stopped his watch.”

I laughed.

And then I thought.

And when I went out last Sunday for a quick run, I deliberately left my watch behind so that I could just enjoy the run and not worry about my pace.

And then Tracey blogged about leaving her watch behind completely, because the competition she was experiencing with herself was getting to be a little overwhelming.  And I knew exactly what she was talking about.

I’ve always been a little obsessive with my time and my pace and my distance.  I love watching myself improve, and I love pushing myself.  But I can tend to get a little…obsessive.  I’m particularly obsessive when I log in to Daily  Mile.  I want to have run farther, or faster, or posted better pace times than other people.  And that’s not a terrible thing – I think competition is good, but my runs have begun to be more about always being faster and going farther, regardless of how my body is feeling.

And so I run my 800m repeats, but I make sure that I run them as fast as I had seen someone else run them the week before, even though it might kill me to do it.  I might feel like running a nice easy day, but the thought of what that will do to my pace when I post the run makes me run faster than *easy*.

So when I left my watch behind last Sunday, it nearly drove me insane that I had no idea if I was running *fast enough*.  Finally, by around the halfway point, I relaxed.  And when the pace felt too quick, I slowed down.  And when it felt good, I let my legs run as fast (or as slow) as they wanted.

Now I’m in physio for a long-standing issue with my hip, and I have no choice but to take it easy.  And so my last two runs on the treadmill have been conservative, and I haven’t posted my times – partly because I didn’t want to, and partly because I completely forgot to write them down.  I think that’s maybe a good thing right now.

I’m not saying that I’ll go on like this forever, because I won’t.  I like knowing how fast I’m going, and I’m totally jonesing for a Garmin that will tell me on my outside runs how fast I’m running in real time, and how far, and all that cool stuff.  And I like pushing myself, and I will do that again too.  But I forgot how good it felt to NOT push myself, and to just run nice and easy.

(Thanks for your post Tracey – you said exactly what I’ve been thinking lately.)