However, my goal got derailed by a herniated C6-C7 disc in my back, suffered in early August. Wanna know how much we take for granted? Try getting out of bed with this condition. It's like 50,000 volts shooting through your body. I tried chiropractic care, which had worked in the past but not this time, and I went to the orthopedic clinic in order to get turned around. The MRI confirmed things, and I'm now on the downhill side of this. Excellent physical therapy has me back to putting weight on my left arm, I can get out of the couch, and I can sleep comfortably at night.
My chiropractor is the one who told me to lay off running, and I did, for seven weeks. I figured it'd be difficult, the not being able to run thing, but when you hurt like that, the pain is the only thing you can see.
So I laid off until last week, when I ran two miles on two separate days. It felt wonderful to get back out there and get my engine running. My back felt OK during and afterward.
Now I'm starting to chomp at the bit, since I feel much healthier. I am a Fleet Feet Sports employee a few days a week now, and I worked our booth at the race AthHalf expo yesterday. It was great to see my running friends and to hear their well wishes for me, since I didn't really say much about my back on Facebook. Anyhow, so many folks were wearing race t-shirts that I started to get really excited about running again. I want more race shirts. I want to place in my age group, which is possible for me. At least it has been in the recent past.So tomorrow I'll probably meet the Monday evening Fleet Feet group run crowd and run the shorter three-mile route. I haven't gone in a while, partially because of my injury and partly due to my now being a graduate student with limited free time.
Can't wait.
