Just Call Me Grace

So on Monday I was leaving work at the end of the day and I had a moment of pure grace wherein I completely tripped over the curb.  Awesome.  I was wearing these little heeled sandals and my toes smooshed against the concrete of the curb when I tripped.  Ouch.  I thought it was basically the equivalent of stubbing my toe- it hurt, but I was fine.  But it kind of hurt more than just a stubbed toe kind of hurt.

Anyway, I made it to the car without further incident and continued on with my evening.  Hubby G, my newly-wedded brother-in-law, his wife, and I all went to a baseball game.  Mid-way through the game at maybe 7:30 or so I checked on my poor little toes.  Not my pinky toe, but the toe next to it was starting to swell- isn’t that weird?  My pinky toe and my middle toe were totally fine but the one in between them was the injured one.  You’d think the other toes would protect it.  Maybe I just had a particularly graceful trip and managed something like this.

It hurt a little bit to walk on it, but not too bad.  That’s when I started to get worried about running- if this stupid toe injury from my klutziness was going to cause me to miss a training run when I’ve made it this far and haven’t missed any yet- I was going to be mad.

Tuesday morning I woke up and my toe felt a little tender still, but I was at least going to try running- my distance was 3 miles, so I thought that would be decent to test things out on.  The first few strides were slightly uncomfortable, but by no means painful.  I finished out the run just fine- woohoo!  My theory is that I’m probably not helping the healing process at all, but I really don’t think I’m hurting it at all either.

Today my toe is still a bit swollen and it has presented a stunning array of colors in the past week, but it’s feeling pretty decent and it hasn’t stopped me from getting any of my training miles in.

Hopefully the 13 miler on schedule for tomorrow doesn’t over-do it.

Headaches

I get headaches.  Fortunately lately I haven’t been getting them nearly as often, but me and headaches, we’ve got a history.

About two years ago I started getting headaches every time after I did a long run.  If I ran anything more than about 6 miles or so I’d get a headache.  I’d feel great while I was running and then about a half an hour or so after I had finished I get hit with a monster headache.  No drugs could make it go away, and absolutely nothing could make me feel better- I just had to wait it out.  And then, miraculously after 5, 6, sometimes 7 hours had passed it would be gone as quickly as it had come.

Then it started to get progressively worse.  I started getting headaches after shorter runs, all the way up until the point that if I even ran just one mile, I’d get a headache afterwards.  NOT COOL.

At first I thought it was dehydration, so I started to be very conscious of how much water I was drinking throughout the day.  No dice.  Didn’t help a bit.

Then I thought it might be a vitamin deficiency.  I remembered (from a nutrition course I took in college) that cracking at the corners of your mouth (which I was getting frequently) was a symptom of a vitamin deficiency, but I couldn’t remember which vitamin it was.  A quick Google search revealed that it was one of the B vitamins, so I started taking an extra vitamin B complex.

The headaches persisted.

I went to my regular doctor, who then sent me to a neurologist.  The neurologist gave me the absolute most useless diagnosis ever.  He said that I had “Exercise-induced headaches”.  I asked why I just started getting them- I had never gotten them before.  His oh-so-helpful answer? “Well, sometimes that JUST HAPPENS.  You didn’t get them before, but you get them now.  Maybe next year you won’t get them anymore.  Maybe you will.  There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Ahh.

Thank you for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  Seriously?  I mean, I would be just fine with it if someone gave me an actual REASON even if there truly was nothing I could do about it.  But just saying, “Well, that’s the way it is” seems like a joke of a diagnosis.  I mean, I’m no medical expert by any means, but I think our medical professionals should be held to some sort of standards here.

Anyway.

I basically had to quit running.  I didn’t really have a choice- the doctor’s weren’t helping me and these headaches were debilitating.  If I ran in the morning the headache would knock me out of commission for the entire day.  I couldn’t keep taking sick days because of these headaches.

About a year after this all started I went back to my regular doctor.  Right when I had first started getting the headaches a prescription that I was on had been changed slightly- I had mentioned this to my doctor- that the changing of the prescription and the onset of the headaches had both happened at about the same time, but she had immediately told me that couldn’t be the cause.  So I believed her.  Because she’s a doctor and I am not.  When I went back to her after a year of awful headaches and being forced to give up running I was to the point of not caring that she was a doctor and I was not.  I told her to switch me back to the formula of the prescription that I had originally had and I didn’t care that she had said that it wasn’t the cause of my headaches.

Guess what happened next?  My headaches miraculously began to ease up.  I could go for a run without being miserable for the rest of the day.  You can bet your life that although I was thrilled to be running again, I was pretty darn dissatisfied that this simple solution took a year of misery to come to.  Especially since my doctor(s) were no help whatsoever.

I’ve gotten through all of my marathon training so far with hardly any headaches.  The few that I’ve gotten have been no where near the level of the ones I got before and can be eased with some Excedrin so that I can continue to function throughout the day.  It feels incredible and even a little bit unbelievable that I can run 10 miles and not have a headache afterwards now- these headaches had become a sad, miserable part of my life that were inescapable if I ever went running and to not have that big dark cloud of misery hanging over my head anymore is SO amazing!  I guess that’s the silver lining of that big dark cloud- it has made me so appreciative and grateful for the ability to run.  It’s not something that any of us should take for granted.

Have any of you ever had something like this happen to you- headaches or otherwise?  Or have any of you had frustrating experiences with a lack of help from medical professionals?  How did you deal with it?

Perspective

It’s amazing how much perspective a long run over the weekend can give you for the shorter training runs during the week.

I ran 10 miles on Sunday (we were out of town on Saturday, so I had to flip-flop my Saturday/Sunday workouts) and it felt amazing- until I stopped.  My legs felt like they were going to fall off.  I felt awesome the whole time I was running- I really liked the route I took and the weather was great.  But let me tell you- after running an hour and 45 minutes with no walking breaks (and I’ll tell you right now that I’m all for walking breaks if you feel the need- I was just on a roll on Saturday so I kept pushing through), the feeling I had when I stopped was AWFUL.  Who would have thought that continuing to run would be less painful than stopping?!  Anyway, I immediately went inside the house and leashed Colby, our crazy puppy, and took him along for a cool-down walk.  I knew that it would be better to give my legs some time to cool down on a walk rather than collapsing in a heap at home.  Colby and I always take the same route on our walks, and I won’t lie and say that the 1.5 mile route felt good to walk after the long run, but it made my legs feel slightly better.  And Colby appreciated it, even if he had to drag aching body the whole way.

Monday was a rest day (thank goodness!) and it gave my body some time to recover.  My knees had been feeling achy after the long run, so I was a little worried that my 3 mile run today might just make it worse.  But I also thought that after the long weekend run, 3 miles sounded like a breeze!

I got up this morning, laced up my shoes and hit the pavement.

Wow.  I felt AMAZING.  My knees felt good and my legs were hungry for more running.  I pretty much always stick to a 10 minute per mile pace no matter how far I’m running- that’s just what my body seems most comfortable with.  Not this morning.  This morning my body said, “Ha! 3 miles? That’s all you’re going to give me today?  Well in that case...” And I ramped up my pace right from the start.  I didn’t consciously do this, I just listened to my body and my legs responded accordingly.

I’ll keep it real here- I felt like I was losing a little bit of my steam during my last mile, but by that time the end was (symbolically speaking) in sight and I was still feeling great.  I rarely check my pace while in the midst of a run, so I was excited to see how I ended up since it had felt so phenomenal.

26 minutes.  8 and a half minute miles.  FOUR MINUTES FASTER THAN MY USUAL PACE.

Whoa.