“Man, I wish I could aquajog.” Never would I have expected
to say those words. Well, not sincerely, at any rate. But here I am sitting
with an extra pillow under my bum and another behind my back, wishing I could have
a silly foam floaty on my back while moving at the speed of a lackadaisical turtle.
But it’s not to be. Dang.
As my faithful followers are aware, I ran my marathon debut
last month. (Recap here.) Besides for running a stupid race (listen to your
coach people!), it also caused by far the biggest injury of my career. Double
dang.
I’m certainly not saying that a marathon is bad, far from
it. Going into the race I was having some issues on my right big toe and, while
I didn’t feel it during the race, it was a bit inflamed. Our best guess is that
some slight overcompensation lead to some not-so-slight extra impact in certain
areas of the body. Specifically, the sacrum.
Stress fracture of the sacral ala (left side) is the
diagnosis. Sure others out there understand this better than I do, but from
what I gather it’s the lowest part of the back that connects to the hips. It’s
also a connecting point for some glut stuff, which is why we thought it was
just my typical glut issues for so long.
Nope. It’s a freakin’ big gash through bone, slicing almost
the whole way.
Well I’ve been hurt before, and even if I couldn’t run I
could keep up fitness by hammering the bike or aquajog or whatever. Well, not
this time.
Aquajogging sucks. I hate it. But I hate doing nothing even
more. But sometimes you just gotta suck it up and deal with the hand you’re
given. Especially when it was avoidable. (I could have just not run the
marathon expecting some injury, which, I must admit, did cross my mind.)
So you won’t be seeing me at USA Cross Country, nor on the
track anytime soon. But mark my words, come fall or winter or even next spring,
I am going to make myself known, be it on the roads, trails, or track.
But for now, man do I envy that silly lackadaisical turtle!
