So I sincerely apologize for taking a long ass time to write a new entry, but alas I felt that time had finally come. So this entry is kind of a personal one for me, not necessarily emotional but personal nonetheless. Sort of a synopsis from the last post to now. Sorry again.
For those that know me pretty well, these past 4-5 months have been dreadful from an activity standpoint. With this bum hamstring and all my lack of motivation to do other various weight lifting activities and exercises left me with quite the limited palette of options. However I took some time off and put my ego aside and took it easy, although I was working during this whole time, and tried to take it easy outside of work. Lack of energy, effort, whatever you want to call it occurred because of the loss of running for me and I started to find other avenues to occupy my time with and unfortunately boredom set in and when that did bored eating crept in. I've been a food lover for as long as I've been alive and without the running, I wasn't able to counteract my usually terrible eating habits and so weight gain soon happened and with that came a loss of confidence. There was also the end of a relationship that probably factored in more than I'd like to admit. So there was all that happening.
Man was I missing the hell out of running, I didn't have that one thing that really kept me balanced so to speak and it was tough on me. Fortunately my landlord lady, had a really nice road bike she would let me ride and that really helped out a lot. I kinda rediscovered the joy of riding a bike like I did as a child, and it was great to be outside again with the wind in my hair (since I haven't shaved or gotten a haircut in some time) which was a wonderful feeling. Thankfully my leg stood up to that, because I was and am still being extremely cautious because I know that I'm not at 100% and won't be for some time. However the leg started feeling better and better and I started thinking well maybe it's time to test it out and see where it's at. I'll be honest it scared the shit out of me to think about trying it out because I just didn't know how bad it was or wasn't but I figured it was worth a shot of trying.
Saturday rolls around and I'm like yeah this is the day to do it, it's cold as hell outside but I was champing at the bit to hit up Silver Comet Trail. I wrapped my leg I had been doing for work and set forth on my adventure. Definitely wanted to make sure to avoid the hilly part of the trail, so I drove a bit further up to one of the more even and flat parts to set up shop. Stretching made me nervous because with the cold weather and a bad muscle you just don't want any type of tears or strains, and was wanting to make the effort to avoid that.
The hammy felt a bit tight, but that was to be expected and I did some hip stretches like an article had suggested. After that, it was time.
Started out a bit slow obviously and felt okay, little soreness but that was expected. Suddenly I kinda back into the old flow and was running again, albeit much slower, but that's what 5 months off can do. Needless to say I was happy that I was able to pull of 2 miles at around 10:30 a clip in cold weather. Either way I knew the real test was the day after and when the next day rolled around let's just say I was pleasantly surprised.
Some soreness and a little stiffness, but that's pretty normal. Man that was a great feeling, and I fully understand I'm about 50-60% and a ways off to really start doing 6-10 mile runs but it's a start and damn it felt good.
So I'll definitely be very cautious and will add miles and tempo as my leg starts to improve and will take the necessary time off to let it heal up a bit more but it's just great to be out there again, even if it is on a limited basis. In the meantime, I plan to use that bad ass road bike some more to help me regain my stamina and some leg strength.
Either way these last few months have been trying at times, but it's just great to be able to be outside and active again. Lastly I would also like to thank the people that kept encouraging me through this time and hopefully continue to do so. Can't say how great it is to have a phenomenal support base.
Thanks for reading.
