Back at it
When I chose to run in college I knew it was going to be full of ups and downs. When you run a lot your body starts to hate you a lot because you are slowly breaking yourself. Our bodies aren't built to run 60 miles a week and push yourself to the absolute limit 3 times a week during workouts. Growing up playing sports it never took much for me to get injured. My leg muscles and joints just have never been tough enough to endure what I put them through for long amounts of time. So when I chose college running I knew I was going to have to be very mentally tough throughout my 4 years here at Bradley.
Now I am a senior and not to say I predicted the future but I have had quite my fair share of setbacks. From tearing my hamstring at an indoor conference meet to straining just about every muscle in my quad, and my latest I.T. band issue. Looking back it would have been so easy to jus give up. Yeah its pretty easy to go to treatment every morning and do exercises for 30 min every day but the hard part is forcing yourself to ride a stationary bike for 2 hours by yourself. Trying to push yourself as hard as you can and get in that cardio work instead of running. The hard part is icing 4 times a day and painfully rolling out every night for 20 min before bed. You miss out on so many team activities that you slowly start to lose connections with people and you feel like you are barely apart of the team anymore. But if you put all of that aside and just grind on your own then you might get lucky like me.
After not running for about a month and a half, hundreds of treatments, exercises and experiments on what works and what doesn't work....I am pain free. I won't get ahead of myself but I have ran twice on the underwater treadmill for 30 min with absolutely no pain. To say I'm excited would be an understatement. I'm pretty sure I didn't stop smiling the whole time I was running too. Just goes to show that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully next blog I'm out of the treadmill and on to the road!!
Now I am a senior and not to say I predicted the future but I have had quite my fair share of setbacks. From tearing my hamstring at an indoor conference meet to straining just about every muscle in my quad, and my latest I.T. band issue. Looking back it would have been so easy to jus give up. Yeah its pretty easy to go to treatment every morning and do exercises for 30 min every day but the hard part is forcing yourself to ride a stationary bike for 2 hours by yourself. Trying to push yourself as hard as you can and get in that cardio work instead of running. The hard part is icing 4 times a day and painfully rolling out every night for 20 min before bed. You miss out on so many team activities that you slowly start to lose connections with people and you feel like you are barely apart of the team anymore. But if you put all of that aside and just grind on your own then you might get lucky like me.
After not running for about a month and a half, hundreds of treatments, exercises and experiments on what works and what doesn't work....I am pain free. I won't get ahead of myself but I have ran twice on the underwater treadmill for 30 min with absolutely no pain. To say I'm excited would be an understatement. I'm pretty sure I didn't stop smiling the whole time I was running too. Just goes to show that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully next blog I'm out of the treadmill and on to the road!!
Keep pushing girl! You will get there! I have always wanted to be a runner but my motivation kills me and I can't get past the hurt when I start! Good for you for sticking by your passion!
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