Step, Stride, Shuffle, Speed

Last year ended as the previous year did, with an injury.  I had just crested the 2,000 miles  for the year mark (first time in my life) the week of Dec 12th and was feeling very good about getting a head start on 2012 training, running faster over distances from earlier in the year with the same level of effort.  Oh well, perhaps my body needed a break.

We celebrated the Holidays in North Carolina and West Virginia and made it back to Boulder for New Years Eve. I spent three weeks nursing my right lower leg and finally saw the Ortho over a week ago, result: grade 2 high ankle sprain.  It's in these moments I find myself thrown off my natural axis of life, not being able to run does something to me emotionally and mentally, I'm just not the same.

I also find that through injury I can take time to re-evaluate.  The first steps when I get back to running feel amazing, awkward and unusual.  Their slow steps, tenuous and filled with trepidation.  I then start adjusting upper body alignment, stride length and frequency, foot strike, and arm swing.  All in an effort to make it feel good again, even though there is pain.  It's hard to tell what is good pain and what is bad pain.  For example, I went out and ran 5 miles last week, what I thought was good pain was actually bad pain...too much, too soon.   So after another couple weeks of not running, I'll step, stride and start shuffling and I'll probably shuffle a lot over the next few weeks before I can test the speed in my legs.  When I say speed, that's a very relative term in my world, we're not talking 6, 7, or even 8 minute miles.

I was in yoga yesterday and the instructor said something we all know and don't practice much of the time,"Insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results." I try and remind myself of this often, as I did this time last year.

The hills are calling, but I need to squelch the urge of seeing them in the distance and wanting to spend hours running all over them.
Many I know have made their race plans for 2012.  As difficult as it is, I on the other hand will hold off and wait to see the progress with my ankle and try and enjoy the "no pressure" zone I'm in without dates of impending races looming over me for the year.  I'll just have fun.

I had an epic year in 2011, really nothing before it compares.  I had four goal races and nailed each one.  I ran over 2,000 miles in one year (for me, that's a lot).  I found peace.  I bonded with Earth.  I rediscovered and revisited depth in my soul and created new depth to explore.  I continued to define myself.

My legs start to tingle in the morning after so many weeks of not running, my skin gets itchy, my soul yearns for the feeling I get gliding over the trails and climbing the hills that have helped shape me this past year.  I will find them again, soon enough. 

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.  For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."  - Unknown