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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Benched

I just copied and pasted what I wrote on my family's website, so some of this I've already addressed here, but I don't feel like coming up with another way to convey this sucky news:


For those who may not have heard through the grapevine, I will no longer be running in the Boston Marathon. Due to a pain in my knee that began about a month ago and got progressively worse, I ended up where I was last Friday--in pain and unable to finish a 3 mile loop, limping home.

After I got stopped during a long run for the second time, I took advantage of the free injury evaluations offered at Aurora. The PT did some poking and prodding and determined to the best of her ability that a weakness in my hip muscles was causing this pain in my knee. Knee bone connected to the ankle bone and all that, except the other way. I'm about 93% sure this is unrelated to my occasional hip pain from the car accident way back when. Actually, I'd say 100% if I could, but since I'm not on good terms with my hips or knees right now, I can't tell you what they are thinking.

Either way, she prescribed some strengthening exercises and said if it didn't get better, an Ortho guy was the next stop. While it hasn't got 'better', I can't say for sure it won't and either way, seeing a really expensive doctor before I've given significant healing time to the knee still won't get me across the finish line.

With all of that, I made the difficult decision (or rather my uncooperative body part made the decision) that a marathon in 19 days just isn't going to happen. We'll still be taking the trip out East with the flights and lodging already paid for. And after wrestling with "fraud" like feelings decided that I did deserve to pick up my tshirt and race packet even if I don't run.

The silver lining in all this is that we'll have plenty of site seeing time and no concerns about getting sleep or staying off my feet. Plus, as of yet, my knee didn't hurt when rock climbing on Sunday or walking on Monday. We'll see how it does with other cross training all while staying diligent with my prescribed exercises. And once I am healed, I'll have lots of motivation to work really hard for another qualifying time so some day in the future I can go back to Boston and really earn the tshirt. In the meantime, I'll try and remember that athletes get injured and that everything happens for a reason.

Doesn't mean I won't pout a little bit though : /

Monday, March 12, 2012

Local Yokel

March 12. Seems like a good day to address resolutions made on Jan 1 :)

One of my goals for this year was to work toward local living. Not only purchasing food and products made locally, but to also support small local businesses. I've actually done several things to support this resolution, but today I'm going to talk about Outpost!

Outpost Natural Foods is a co-op here in Milwaukee. From their website:
Co-ops are founded on the belief that we can achieve greater results by working together than we can alone. A co-op is a business voluntarily owned and controlled by the people who use it – its members. It’s operated solely for the benefit of its members.
While not everything in the store is local--the chia seeds I purchased were from Mexico, and not everything is organic--they stock Gatorade, the sense of community and emphasis on local and regional products is important to me. As is taking ownership in the movement. I don't know how Sam's Club works, but I have a sense that annual dues give you the privilege to shop. The co-ops 'dues' are actually purchasing a portion of your ownership (or you pay for the full ownership up front).

I will still do a large portion of my shopping at Aldi as a check book balance in the black is currently higher on my list than being 100% local or organic, but I'm proud I've taken this step in my journey toward local living.

In Pursuit,

Sarah

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Ouch!

I don't get injured. I don't stop running. But it has hurt enough to make me stop running. Twice.

My knee hurts and I have been physically unable to finish my attempt at an 18 miler and a 20 miler. There was pain, there were tears, and there was a definite unease about my marathon status.

Fortunately, Aurora has a sports medicine center that does free injury evaluations. And fortunately the PT thinks this is a result of weak hips. Unfortunately, there are only a few more weeks and it will take time to build up strength to fix this problem.

Fortunately I have enough innate stubbornness and built up endurance that I feel I can physically finish the marathon. Unfortunately, I don't know if I can physically finish the marathon.

This probably all sounds more serious than it actually is. And hopefully that is true. For now, I'll put in the miles that I can, do the exercises I've been given, and depend on that stubbornness to get me through.

In Pursuit,

Sarah