Some weeks just don't play ball.
I knew this one was trouble when I woke up on Monday morning (which was a stat holiday) and my shoulder was agony and my left eye was red and scratchy and painful.
I was SO frustrated.
The last day of a 5 day stretch off work always has me itching to complete "the list" of things I wanted to get done. To run those errands the week would leave little time for. To have a lovely meal with my family before the craziness of a new term.
But I was benched. Or couched in this case.
And while the shoulder started to feel better the eye got worse.
This week has been mostly about blurred vision as the Dr has worked to sort our some pretty big issues in my eye. It has been painful and frustrating. For almost 3 days I have not been able to see this computer screen or my phone or anything in the near distance.
Looking up and out to the distance was fine.
In a surreal way my physical condition this week mirrored my internal / emotional condition.
My vision was blurred in more than one way.
I am so frustrated that my body has interrupted my running program. I was so desperate to run I was in tears on Monday when pain and blurred vision stopped me short. But really what was that about? It's not like I am an elite athlete with Olympic time trials on the horizon (in fact I more resemble a shuffling Armenian grandmother than a runner - no offence to Armenian grandmothers intended). I have a training program but no one was holding me to account to it except myself. Same with Jazzercise....its me that wants/needs to go.
So there I sat on the step.....feet away from my runners feeling defeated.
Like a failure.
And then I decided I could sit there feeling miz and like a failure, feeling like I would never get back up again (its the Irish dramatic DNA in me to be so OTT) or I could give myself a break.
A week off.
To heal and to rest.
That all was not lost. I might have to back up my run program a couple weeks but all is NOT lost.
And right away I felt better. I felt like having given myself permission to rest and heal I had taken the self-imposed pressure off and I could relax.
In the past I might have used this bump to walk away from goals set, to throw back my head and wail that is was all too hard (see Irish reference above), to use this as a good reason to not follow through.
But this time I want keep going.
I have unfinished business out there on the road. My body will return to its more cooperative ways.
My vision will clear inside and out and on I will go..... shuffling along..... one step at a time.
Almost exactly a year since I last ran I hit the road again on this perfect Spring night.
So great.
