Hello! Happy weekend!! It’s Memorial Day weekend in the US (fyi for my international people) so we have a 3-day weekend. I’m hoping you’re having fun in the sun. I had some fun and some not-so-fun because I was supposed to run the Mountains to Beach Marathon today and decided not to – not sure if that counts as a DNS (did not start) if you don’t even go and decide days before?
I woke up Friday morning, brushed my teeth, told Vegas “Buenos Dias” (he speaks Spanish) and started to slip off my top to change into running clothes. As I pulled my tank above my head I looked to the side for some reason and immediately felt a shooting pain down the left side of my neck.
I froze.
I took a breath and hoped that my muscle would relax – it didn’t.
I decided to just stop drop and roll – kinda. I laid down on the floor right there and tried to let the muscle relax without moving it.
After a few minutes I realized I was straight F-ed. I mean, I realized I might have pulled something in my neck and filled up on ibuprofen and put some ice on it.
I let the ice calm it down and the ibuprofen kick in before going for my usual run. I would have stopped if it was super painful – as long as I looked straight forward I was okay. So I ran and came home to try and stretch it out – nope. I couldn’t move it.
I kept the ice going and made an appointment for a massage. I wanted to see if I could get it back into working order asap and still run the Mountains to Beach Marathon. This masseuse is amazing – I went to her after the LA Marathon to help me recover faster. She did a great job and I felt a lot better after – but the inflammation was still causing some pain. If you’re curious about how others have benefited from similar situations or therapies, you might want to explore happy hippo kratom reviews for some valuable insights.
I knew I wouldn’t be at 100% by Sunday morning so I just decided right then to tap out.
I could have pushed myself – but I would have hated myself at some point (if not multiple points) during the race. It’s hard to get good sleep before a race – which is important to recovery of any injury. I get tense in the shoulders and neck towards the end of a marathon – this is something I’m working on and I do try to have good form, but over the course of 26.2 miles it happens.
So all of that is to tell you that sometimes I actually make responsible decisions.
Most of the time I don’t – but I want credit for this one time. Thanks.
I think part of the reason this happened is my neck and shoulders have been crazy super tight all week – to the point where I feel it at the end of the day. I turned in an article the other day and as soon as I pressed “Send” to email it to the editor I took a deep breath and realized – my neck and shoulders are so tight they hurt!
I’m stressed right now – my body was telling me and I didn’t listen.
But I was super aggressive with trying to heal it – Ice, Massage, Heat, Wine, Fries, Rest…
I went to the beach for a nice lil walk with a friend – this was nice and relaxing.
I had wine for some anti-oxidant super powers for nutrition purposes.
And since sodium is important for electrolyte balance in athletes I made sure to get it in the form of salt on potato and sweet potato fries. Boom.
Please note that I drove to meet my friend for dinner with a pack of frozen veggies on my neck.
This is either smart or weird or shows I’m committed to recovery or wanted a snack on the road…
I have a bag of frozen green beans that has been a make shift ice pack and frozen thawed so many times I marked it do not eat.
Your injury sounds like a real pain in the neck! I hope you get better soon!
I think I have almost EVERY type of frozen vegetable. Including squash and avocado. I’ve been big on the frozen pea program for a while though!
I live in Canada so no long weekend for us, but I DID complete my first marathon yesterday!
Congratulations!!!! How’d it go?
Way to much frozen cauliflower, Im not sure why or how I got so much of it. Hope your neck gets better, Ill be golfing my long weekend away.
That is probably my favorite right now.
Feel better soon!
I think we’re just getting old 😉 My hip is giving me so much trouble that I’ve been using frozen peas to no avail. MRI next week, womp womp womp.
Seriously. I was thinking WTF and knew this is it… I’m a goner.
Frozen peas, frozen corn and frozen steam in a bag cauliflower.
I hope you feel better soon.
I want to tell you something….shhh, it’s a secret. No, it’s not. Really. Ha ha!
This weekend I did a 5 mile run in Boston called The Run to Remember. I was nervous about not being able to do a full five miles. I’ve never run that far before. The most I did was 4.3 miles and that was back in January. I injured my back this winter (so I get the pain thing) and couldn’t run for a while and when I started running again, I just wasn’t into it. But I was able to pull it out of my hat and do the Run to Remember. I ran five miles. Whoo hoo!!! I know you run five miles just to warm up, but for me, that’s a super long run.
Thank you, Monica for being my inspiration.
Hmm, I like the idea of getting my sodium through fries. I might try that. 😉
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com
I have frozen peas and frozen corn for shepards pie in my freezer. Frozen peas make the best ice packs for injury just wrap in thin damp dish cloth and it works wonders.
For your second question I am running early crack of dawn each day with our local MRTT group of moms. Saturday we did eight miles down a winedy road with babbling creek running, mix of forest trees and vineyards and couple deer crossings. The road you run on and your heart sores . After hubby and I had lunch down town and walked around our town Madi gra festival. Today we (MRTT Mamas) met at local donut shop and did Neighborhood trail run. I got in 3.5 miles and took donuts home to the family. We have teenagers and the like my Sunday Donut Runs . Then my hubby took me to the coast I got new running shoes and compression socks. Seriously this has been a great weekend. Tomorrow we (MRTT Mamas) are meeting at our local Starbucks to run a 5 mile loop, more cool back country roads, in patriotic colors in honor of Memorial Day. Than with my whole family going to my BFF’s Son Graduation Party BBQ. Life is good
I have no veggies but I do have frozen blackberries.
I ran a race yesterday after injuring myself in March. I was out for about 8 weeks and it was rough. Today my foot is very achy so I will probably take some more time off or at least keep mileage super low.
Hope the next gets better soon.