Well I’ve been pretty good about staying constant with my workouts and eating healthy. I’m seeing amazing results, including losing two additional inches around my waist in the last two days.
Last night as I was going down the stairs at home something happened and I think I pulled something in my knee. A lot of the women in my family have suffered from bad knees, my grandmother had terrible problems with her knees, probably from being overweight. My mom was having knee issues and they went away when she got back in shape (yaay mom!).
So here I am today thinking, OK, I really want to work out REALLY REALLY REALLY, but as I got down on my mat, I looked over at my husband and told him that I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. It hurts and I don’t want it to get worse. It’s not swollen, it’s just tender. So time for a break, time to rest and time to recover. This is the best I can do for today.
A long time ago, when I was training for a marathon, I was the team leader for my training group. I was very conscious of the way to train because I knew exactly how much I was putting my body through. We had a few team members complain that we were not running fast enough, they decided to open their own group because we were too slow for them. A few weeks later, one of the runners was back in my team, she had suffered an injury and was forced to run slower. Again, she started to complain that we were running too slow for her, even though we were running at the correct pace. At one point I was getting a little frustrated with the situation, I turned to her and said “Listen, you hurt yourself because you weren’t listening to your body. I am not going to let the other members of the team run faster and run the risk of injury. If you don’t want to listen to your body, go ahead, but you’ll have to run by yourself.” The following week she ran at a faster pace with another group, she ended up injuring herself again to the point that she was not able to run the marathon at all.
Looking back at her situation, I can completely understand how she was feeling. I imagine she was feeling back then, the way I’m feeling today “maybe if I can only push myself harder and ignore the pain… maybe I’ll be okay.” But why risk it? If I don’t allow my knee to rest, I risk permanent injury. It’s not about pushing yourself to the point of injury, it’s about pushing yourself wisely. Do your best doesn’t mean “go hurt yourself” it means “do as much as you can such that you won’t injure yourself and listen to your body”
So here I am, resting today… taking it easy. Writing, which is something I love to do and getting ahead on my university homework. Life is great, 🙂