Back home from St. Louis, visited my doc & soon after, added physical therapy.  IT band injury my primary source of pain – pretty common among runners, nothing special…but mighty debilitating.

Increasing miles this year, coupled with lack of consistent training my downfall.  Diagnosis:  No running for 4-6 weeks.  What?!  Marathon schedule is FULL thru end of June – every weekend booked, all races registered, most flights ticketed.

Meds dulled the persistent bursts of shooting pain up my left leg, particularly the left knee outer band.  Iced my knee each evening after work.  Disappointment, depression.  Work, home, sleep.  FOOD coma.  Ate ‘til I gorged, then slept.

Missed Blue Ridge Marathon.  No $$ recourse for flights on American.  (Technically, I could reschedule but the $200 penalty per leg was more prohibitive than the cost of the ticket itself.)

Swimming.

Never say never, right?  I HATE lap swimming – gave it up after Ironman in 2014.  Now part of physical therapy, my only means of approved activity.  Would start cycling (spin class) on Tuesday – another sport dismissed after Ironman – but no running.

FaceBook smiles & marathon medals – folks would be running Boston on Monday.  Will never be that fast.  Sub 3:30 to qualify for guys my age.

More food – an entire pan of lasagna.  Heavy spring snow so stayed indoors.  Netflix binged – hours of nothing special.  Walked Ro, back in bed.  No shower since Friday morn.  2 tubs of hummus, half loaf of cinnamon toast.  HUGE plate of spaghetti.  More sleep.

Why am I blogging this?

EVERYONE suffers disappointment.  EVERYONE slips into periods of depression.  Just ‘cause we don’t post a pic, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.  Many of us replace the void with FOOD or alcohol or other vices.  The trick is coming back – re-finding yourself, re-finding purpose, filling the void, filling the dark time.

Up 12 lbs since October.  Haven’t marathon trained since July 2015 – just keep showing up.  It’s been a great ride, a wild 50 State journey…but somewhere amidst all the travel last fall/this Spring, got off-center.

I’m better than this – I know better.  From sad to mad.

Sunday 4pm – grabbed my first shower.  Snow stopped.

Long walk with Ro.  He LOVES snow, life, food, LOVES me.  Pretty simple really.  Tomorrow’s gonna be different.  It’s a process – life, that is – right?  Not expecting an overnight insta-turnaround.  Small steps lead to better life decisions, healthy change.

No marathon again next weekend – but also no new pan of lasagna.

Baby steps 🙂

Next week: Forgiveness

The mountains are calling.  Getting quiet & going on a Colorado hike.