I didn't pull up so well on the Monday after our racing effort the day before in the Clare Valley.
My shins were death.
You might remember me mentioning in a previous post, my fears about my shins which had been a little sore leading up to the 10km race, and my hopeful remedy of the situation by regular remedial massage.
In those earlier weeks, the shin splints were apparent, but not painful enough for me to be worried.
Knowing that shin splints could possibly be an ongoing issue for me, I probably should not have even pushed myself to finish that race, and I definitely should not have continued running those last 3kms that were hell mostly because my shins were burning like lava.
Generally when you get some kind of magma induced pain, you should probably stop what you are doing immediately. Especially because I am told you can actually rip your calf muscles right off your bones, and even fracture your bones if you are do a super job of it. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
General advice regarding shin splints will also tell you that you will suffer most from this when you are not running.
So, Monday was a delight.
I was definitely in a state of denial about the pain I was experiencing, and the possible outcome of it.
Then I started to do some research on ways to remedy the situation myself from others who had ongoing issues with shin splints and I started to dawn on me the apparent severity of the situation.
Is this going to be an issue I have to deal with right up to the marathon? Did I push myself too hard and caused an irreparable injury? Am I even going to be able to run the marathon? Why was this not an issue before?
Well I learnt something pretty quickly: There is far too much contradicting information on the internet.
One site said I should not run on hard surfaces. Well, where the hell am I supposed to run?!
Another site said that super padded shoes actually create more shock to your legs, and barefoot running on hard surfaces are actually the best thing you can do. What?
Apparently I am not allowed to run until the symptoms have gone, and if the symptoms occur, I must stop immediately and ice the area. What if I don't have symptoms until I start running, then what?! I don't exactly keep an ice pack in my pocket.
I was quietly freaking out.
Rhi and I had agreed to go for a run Tuesday morning, but I was woken up at 4am by a phone call from Mum telling me that her Mother; my Nana, had just passed away.
My Nana has been suffering from a lung and brain tumor for a while now. And although she had successfully completed her radiation therapy with great results, the damage was already done and Nana had been slowly deteriorating.
The phonecall wasn't a surprise, but still heartbreaking.
I did not know my Nana all that well, as she has always lived in another part of the country (and in the last 10 years, a different country altogether) and therefore my grief was not as debilitating as my mothers.
I apologised to Rhi, took the day off work, and went and spent the day with the only two family members I have in South Australia: my Mum and my cousin Ben.
In Nanas honour, we grabbed some Krispy Kremes and went down to the ocean and sat on the beach, as it was one of Nanas favourite things to do.
I spent the day tending to everyone else's grief, and by the time I got home and saw a beautiful bunch of flowers from my workplace on the doorstep, it all caught up with me.
I took Wednesday off work as well to tend to my own grief.
When Chris got home from work in the afternoon, I was in the middle of finally pushing myself out the door to go for a run. I figured it would be good for me to get out the house and expend some energy.
Surprisingly, Chris decided he would come with me. Lovely.
Let us not forget what happened the last time that Chris came with me for a run and somehow I had become a possessed-banshee-batshit-crazy lady that cried loudly on the sidewalk.
I was apprehensive, but waited patiently while he got changed and chucked his trainers on.
He did, however, forget to mention to me that he had just downed a half a litre of iced coffee and a giant chicken foccacia so we didn't get far before Chris has to slow to a walk to stop himself from vomiting.
I may have been a little smug.
Due to Chris being very very dehydrated with a tummy full of food, he had to continue stopping every 10mins and I was the one quietly encouraging us to keep moving.
I'll admit, it felt great.
We did a 7km loop around the suburbs but walked most of it. It was still a great workout.
I spent the rest of the week feeling really weird about life in general. Grief is weird.
I went into work Thursday but spent most of the day pissed off at everyone for no particular reason and wasn't all that productive.
I stubbornly wanted to run after work on Thursday, but had to go by myself since Rhi had dinner arrangements she had to attend.
I wanted to run the full 7.2km loop around the torrens, but much to my annoyance, parts of the track were closed for maintenance and so I had to take a short cut.
Another 10mins in and it was like I all of a sudden remembered that I sometimes get shin splints. And they reared their ugly head.
I don't know whather I had started to fatigue and then therefore my stride or footfalls had changed, but all of a sudden my shins were burning and the pain was insufferable.
I cut the track even shorter but stubbornly refused to stop until I had made a full loop, and managed 5.2km in the end.
What hell.
I was so annoyed.
I knew I could physically run so much further and yet by stupid legs were making it impossible.
It was really upsetting.
I have been so proud of my progress and my body has just decided to take hostage of the situation, flipped the bird, turned and laughed away into the distance.
I was going to have to do something about this.
After madly researching some more information on the internet, I decided that the best thing I can do until I see my remedial therapist again, is to rest my legs for the rest of the week, maybe invest in some KT Tape and Compression Socks and just see how I go.
So, rest I did.
Friday night, Chris and I went fishing down at Sempahore Jetty, and then on Saturday and Sunday I stayed in, obsessively watched Netflix and moved as little as possible. Win!
