Will I make it? Time will tell

A little over a month from the ‘09 year has passed, reason of satisfaction for me and many others to celebrate because January has been a though month due to many reasons and aspects. First of all, weather in Western Pa the past month was terrible, many people said one of the toughest months they have seen in years. As far as I remember we had snow pretty much every day throughout January, and temperatures dropped down bellow 0 F on several occasions. This made it really hard for running, but myslef and SFU runners managed to find ways of getting our training done.

Cold and harsh climate has plaid a major role in my rehab from the surgery. January was by far a very challenging month with lots of downs and concerns regarding my health. My progress was very little, in fact at times I though that my surgery was actually getting worse as nagging pains appeared and kept switched form one place to the other. Towards the end of January I called my doctor and scheduled an appointment to see me, which will indeed happen on February 23rd. My Dr. also prescribed another doze of 6 weeks of indometacin (anti-inflammatory), which I’ve been started taking.

Most of the discomfort I had during the first 3 months after surgery was on my left side of the hip. However, the left side now appears to be doing well and could see progress. The only problem is that over time I unconsciously tended to favor the right side over the left and the negative effects (compensation pain) by doing that did not take long to emerge. The trigger point to that was when I had to shovel the snow accumulated around my car after a snow plow truck pushed it towards and beneath it. It seems the shoveling strained my right lateral abdominal. It happened in mid January when I abandoned/left my car about ½ a mile from my house because the car alarm acted funny. I guess I pressed the wrong button and activated a program which forbade me form starting the car after I turned it off. That day I was on my way to a track meet with the SFU team-it was on a cold Saturday morning at 6am, outside temperature read -13F. In the end I got picked up and made it to the indoor track meet and worried about the car the following Monday.

A week after I got back from El Paso I figured out the way to stop my achilles tendon problem, which troubled me in December and could have also extended in January. It seemed that switching to a particular running shoe was the cause of my pain. Therefore, I decided not to use that shoe and go back to the old shoe I had used prior. The results were positive immediately after I started using the old pair of shoes-and have been enjoying running again ever since then (January 12th). However, lately I have been having pain in my left knee, which could be a result of running on the roads for too much. The fact is, I have never felt comfortable running on hard surface such as roads, but there has been no other choices here, and until March or so it may be the only option there is. So now I’m icing my keen twice a day in order to take care of it and stop further damage. Luckly, the last 3-4 days I have been training on softer surfaces since there are more options after Western PA was hit by a heat wave early this week, high 61 F. However, that did not last much and now we are back to winter as snow made its way in.

As I said earlier the last 7 to 10 days did show improvements as far as my surgery. The truth is I have been working really hard for it. I allocated about 1H every evening for massaging the scar tissue and much of the area where the surgery took place. I got more motivated to do massaging over the past few weeks although this (massaging) is something I had constantly done following surgery. It’s a fact that my fingers are getting painful for doing so much massaging, but I am happy that I finally see some results.

With all the challenges I have been facing lately I am still optimist about getting back to competitive track and field. My training these days consist of long runs, which lately have been around 1 hour long (pace is decent). I also do a lot of stretching and core training and seem to be heading towards the right direction. The feeling I have in mind now is not a question about when I will be back into racing, but rather a statement I tell myself every day “you will do all that it takes to achieve your dreams and get to where you belong”. I’ve came to realize the challenge I’m facing and the effort, both mental andphysical, I need to generate if I want to get to the top. Will I make it? Time will tell!

In the meantime I’m patiently waiting my doctor’s appointment, continue to train, treat my injuries, take care of school, and do my G.A. duties. It’s very true that I have a busy schedule, however, I am structuring my time to have enough time for all the things that I do. These are the last three months I’ll spend in Western PA and maybe in the U.S. so I want to do my best, it’s pretty much all I can do.

My Valentine’s day will be interesting as I need to wake up before 7am tomorrow, Feb 14th, cause I’ll be travelling with SFU track team to Lewisburg PA for another indoor meet, which is the last meet before NEC conference championships scheduled next weekend in Baltimore, MD. Definitely lots of excitement for me ahead.

There is a saying: “when the wheel stops spinning you have to be ready to push it”. That is exactly what I am doing