Square Zero

The GORUCK challenge is less than three weeks away, and I'm starting to freak out.

Despite my best efforts to work through the IT band problems that derailed my training plan five weeks ago, I'm only now returning to running. I had an encouraging appointment with the PT yesterday, which confirmed that I've pretty much resolved the biomechanical issues that caused the problem, but the knee still keeps getting inflamed whenever I try to run. It's critical that I not let that happen. I left with some new exercises to do and clear instructions to run ONLY as much as I can without causing pain afterwards.

Today, that was half a mile. No weight, no dog, no hills, on the treadmill.

I should be feeling positive that I did it with no problems, but instead I just feel deflated. After nearly three months of training, I find myself back at the beginning, unable to run even as much as when I started this journey. It's worse than going back to square one: I'm at square zero.

Things wouldn't be so bad if I had done a better job adapting my training to this injury, but I'm realizing that only now. I had to pretty much abandon my original plan since I wasn't able to run, and I haven't been able to keep any real structure to my workouts since then. I've jumped back and forth from weight training to martial arts, spin classes to body weight exercise with this sort of frantic urgency to do something ...anything to keep getting stronger for the challenge.

Problem is, without any consistent program, I don't think I've made much progress, or if I have it's hard to measure. So with under three weeks to go, aside from worrying about my running ability, I I just don't feel fit, or at least not as fit as I need to be.

Now I feel like its crunch time, and I should be doing super hard core workouts every day to whip myself into shape. Only my body won't let me. I've got to be careful with my knee, I'm having a lot of aches and pains, and I've been battling a cold for a month. The inescapable fact is that I have to rest sometimes.

So I sit here on the couch, writing this post, feeling stir crazy. Doubts are creeping in, but all I can do is stay positive and keep working as much as my body will let me.