Niggles and Endorphins

I feel bad for interrupting Kristen's amazing three part recap of AFC Half (not sarcastic!! I legitimately cant wait for the big hill!)... But Im back running again again again, after a couple more niggles. And you should all feel supremely lucky that you are going to get the full run-down on that. 

So this injury saga has been loooong. I had a cuboid stress fracture in my right foot back on March 10 which took about 3 months to diagnose and about the same to heal. Causes included running on 500-mile shoes with aggressive superfeet orthotics + the usual suspects (definitely try increasing mileage by 15% and running 6x1mile repeats in the same week! Its truly amazing to me, the goldfish qualities I repeatedly exhibit with how rapidly I learn, then promptly unlearn, the Too Much Too Soon lesson). 

Returning to running got me some sinus tarsal syndrome in the same foot. My doctor took one look at my dejected Imayprobablyactuallywillkillsomeonedead face, and agreed to give me a very painful but effective cortizone injection. 

Got over that, and returned to get some other weird pains on the underside of my foot. I seem to have solved that by wearing the orthotics my podiatrist made for me; that I had previously been too spooked by the SFx experience to wear. Yaaaaay for user error. 

So Im back at it again. Mileage since the sfx healed has obviously been low and patchy:

June: 0.5, 1 , 3, 11

July: 10, 4, 0, 4

August: 16, 12, 10

Yes this is miles per week. Yes it is inversely proportional to the number of walls I felt like punching for how slow this process has been. 

That is, until yesterday, actually. I set out to do 5 miles (the most I have run in a single day since the sfx) on one of my routes that takes me around the backside of Darling Harbour, in and around all of the piers, to the Harbour Bridge (KA - cant wait to run this with you!). I promised myself that if I felt good, and I was sticking to a >9:00 pace (around 5:40min/km for the metric-lovers out there) then I could add another mile for 6. 

And it did feel good. My feet were stiff and weird, but it felt good. My body was heavy and cumbersome, but it felt good. At the beginning of the run, my mind was swirling with all of the shit that has been going on in my life this past 6 months... until, as it inevitably does on a run, it cleared for some brief exquisite moments of calm.... And it felt really good. 

And then it started to rain. And contrary to what might seem obvious to the non-runners out there, running in the rain could not feel more powerful, strong, controlled, freeing, refreshing, exhilirating and.... Just good. 

I finished the run, forgiving myself, my foot, my body and the universe for these 6 months and thankful that I just get to run again.

And to commemorate this borderline endorphin-OD, when I got home I took a post-run bedroom selfie, complete with weird iphone filter because the lighting sucked: 

And on that note, i'll also leave you with some pics of the harbour that I took on my first run outside a few weeks ago:

~ Penny