So my plan this week was very simple. Training at the athletics club on Wednesday night, and the East of Ireland 10k in Lusk on Saturday morning, hopefully improving on my 1:08:22 time in Staplestown a couple of weeks ago. Actually, I intended to go for 1:06, sure why not?
At track training, I decided to do a couple of sprints with my running friend Pat ‘125 parkruns’ Newham. Unfortunately, I lost the run of myself, over-stretched on the sprints and pulled my right hamstring. Stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do!! I know not to go all out. I already knew that my hamstrings, quads and calves in both legs were tight, so I was looking for trouble. Anyway, nothing for it but to go home and apply the RICE techniques again, this time to the back of my leg instead of the front.
Now, I often hear of people being injured and trying to keep up their training or not wanting to miss a race. But I have learned that it I have to tackle my recovery from injury with the same wholehearted commitment that I apply to my running. Otherwise, I’ll prolong the recovery period and just get more frustrated and less fit. So I immediately knew that the Lusk 10k was out. As soon as I arrived home from training and sat on the couch with the ice pack, I contacted EOI and withdrew from the race.
When I’m injured, there is only one way that I can safely pick up on the running buzz and that’s by volunteering. I mean, every Saturday morning I either race or do a parkrun. It’s so long since I’ve had a lie-in on a Saturday morning that I knew I’d be awake anyway. So I checked the websites of my 2 local parkruns to see if they needed any volunteers. Castletown had a full house, but Griffeen was in need of a marshal – perfect. I’ve marshalled on a few occasions and I get a great buzz out of encouraging parkrunners of all abilities to keep going. I’m not particularly shy about cheering people on, and I know many Griffeen parkrunners by name, so I’d have a great time. I emailed Griffeen who promptly put me on the roster. Saturday morning non-running buzz sorted. And I would have so much fun blogging about volunteering – happy days.
Then on Thursday, I arrived home from work to find that my 10 year old daughter had fallen in school and hurt her wrist. I examined it with my somewhat educated eye (I’m a nurse, paediatric trained, specialising in orthopaedics – I should have some clue) and determined that she needed an X-ray as she could well have broken it – not least because this little girl has already had 2 broken collar bones and a broken elbow, the latter of which she picked up while we were on holidays in New York!! She seems to break somewhat easily but still won’t let us dress her in bubble wrap. We headed to hospital where there were so many sick children waiting to be seen that we were advised that it would be at least 4-5 hours before we would see a doctor. Thankful that we did not need immediate nor urgent attention, we decided to spend those hours at home in bed rather than in the hospital waiting room and would return in the morning. On Friday morning, they x-rayed her wrist and determined that it was sprained. However, I was not surprised to get a phone call on Friday evening to say that the consultant had reviewed the X-ray and found that there was a hairline fracture and that she would need a cast, could we come on Saturday morning at 9am please? I knew there was little point in trying to explain that Saturday is parkrunday! So, I promptly contacted Griffeen and withdrew my marshalling services.
So there you have it. Saturday morning 10k plan had to be changed to parkrun volunteering plan, which then had to be changed to a not-so-planned hospital visit. Therefore, my running blog this week is very little about running, more about how, despite our best efforts, sometimes life just gets in the way. My daughter has her cast, she’s going to be fine. My hamstring is healing nicely, I’m now applying a hot water bottle to the affected area and it looks like I’ll be fine for the Lust for Life next weekend. I was booked for the 10k but I’m hoping it’s ok to run the 5k instead. What can I say? Plans change. And thankfully these are really only very minor glitches. We just have to go with it and not sweat the small stuff.
Here’s to being optimistic of a full and speedy recovery for my daughter and my hamstring!
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