Looking At Gift Horses In The Mouth

"I've had a bad day,

I'm gonna laugh about it

And I'll be fine, I'm gonna be all right

I'm hanging on today

And nothing's gonna stop me anyway"

-Hanging On, Cheyenne Kimball

Dear body: Can we please stop screwing around here and just start working properly so that we can, like, run a marathon and stuff?

When the Running Spot gave each of the training group members an ice pack as one of our "perks" this season, I didn't think I'd be getting much use out of it. In fact, I kind of laughed when I got it, thinking that it's a horrible "gift" to give a bunch of runners who could potentially injure themselves. What are they trying to do, jinx us? Anyway, I popped it in the freezer and didn't give it another thought. Unfortunately, I had to get it out of the freezer a few weeks ago when I suffered a minor calf strain in Zumba class two days before my 16-mile run. Icing the calf helped a lot, and along with some rest and wrapping it in an ace bandage, it didn't bother me at all during the run.

Well... I had to get the ice pack out of the freezer again last night. This time, it's my lower back. A couple of different factors are to blame here: First, I've been hitting the gym hard the past few weeks, and on Monday I just increased the amount of weight I have on the bar for deadlifts, deadrows, etc. On Tuesday (before my group run) I took an abs class and not only did we do some exercises that were really taxing on the lower back (planks, obliques side-crunches, etc.), but by the time we started running, my legs were a little shaky. So, at about a 1/2 mile in, I hit a rut in the street, and while I didn't hurt myself during the little stumble, it was just enough to majorly tweak out my back. I was hoping the pain would work itself out, but by mile 2 I was still hurting. As I stopped to stretch and debate about whether or not to go on, I saw Coach Joe. I told him what happened and told him I thought I could run the mile back to the store, and he agreed I should just go ahead and cut the run short, so that's what I did.

So, the Running Spot ice pack came back out of the freezer last night and after a really uncomfortable night of sleep last night, I'm icing it again today whilst sitting in my cubicle. I've tweaked this same spot in my lower back several times before, and I know that it takes about 2-3 days to fully recover. However the timing isn't so great, due to the 18-miler I'm scheduled to do on Saturday. My hope is that a few days of rest (and ice) will make me good as new for the big run.

Stupid Running Spot and your stupid "perks" ... if they give us crutches next year, I'm going to run the other way!