Injury feels as though it’s healing…

For those of you out there who have no interest in running, you’re probably finding my blogs very boring lately…  maybe you have always found them boring and you’re just humouring me by reading them… who knows. I will continue typing anyway…

I just wanted to share my hope with you y’see.

My newfound hope that I may be running again soon!  My shin splints (self diagnosed with the help of google) seems to be healing.  I am lucky in the sense that the shin splints were like a delayed effect and came on the day after a run.  So I have never actually been running with the injury or through the injury as I know some people do.  I haven’t ran since the injury, allowing it the time to heal.  It was hard not to, but I had to keep reminding myself to listen to my body.  I had to summon up the physiotherapist in me and adhere to the advice.  Now if this persists, I am going to have to visit a physio but I am going to see if it will heal by itself first.

I did go to the gym and did 40 minutes on that elliptical trainer thing I spoke about in a previous blog.  I also did my usual 17 mile cycle and did the ‘climbing stairs machine’ in the gym also, all of which didn’t aggravate my injury.  The only thing that seems to aggravate it is the motion of walking and the contact my foot has with the ground, so running is out of the question.  Walking is being introduced gradually and today it feels a lot stronger.

When I did my running plan, I added in an extra two weeks in the event of injury or say, if I got swine flu or something that would prevent me from running.  So, I do have up to two weeks to rest without jeopardizing my training.

If it heals, I will start running again on grass or preferably sand.  I am off to Galway tomorrow for a couple of months.  I am sure there will be a beach there I can run on that will lessen the impact.

It’s funny but when you have been enjoying doing something for a long time, like running and it suddenly becomes a forbidden activity, you start to become a little obsessive about it.  I find myself rubbernecking when joggers pass me by and then filling up with envy.

I have got to get back out there soon and I have got to run in the Dublin City Marathon.

Fingers and toes and shin splints crossed.