September Setbacks

Sometimes life hands you lemons and you make some lemonade. Then there are times when life hands you a triple fudge sundae with nuts, caramel AND a cherry on top and you just eat the damn thing and ignore the consequences. September, it seems, has given me both of these.

September started off with my triple fudge sundae - I got married! The event we'd been waiting for these last 16 months finally came to pass and it was wonderful. Hurricane Isaac's threat to ruin the entire (outdoor based) day, but ended up causing nothing more than a very stressful week and a little bit of mud. We had a blast, the Cards beat Kentucky, and I'm now officially a Mrs.

Best of all, the morning of the wedding my mom and I got to put aside all of the craziness and do what we love to do: go walking. The rain kept us out of our favorite park, but we headed to the mall and churned out three mindless miles. We talked about so many random things and window shopped and laughed. After what was a pretty stressful lead-up to the wedding, this was a great start to the day. For those of you who don't know, my mom got me into running initially. When my weight started to get out of control back in college she and my grandfather started making me walk with them on Saturdays. What started as a (somewhat) painful chore became two marathons and five half-marathons. Walking with mom on my wedding day was an amazing way to reconnect to that memory, and to honor both our relationship and my grandfather at the same time.

However, one thing got sacrificed for the good of the wedding (and the honeymoon that followed): my training plan. There are 2-3 weeks that are just blank on my calendar. Does this bother me? Yeah, it does. I'm a type-a runner girl and it annoys me to have stretches without training before a race. Will I get over it? Absolutely. I'm glad I was able to put aside my often neurotic need to run in order to enjoy the occasion. When life hands you the perfect sundae, you don't stop and worry about how it will effect your waist line, you eat!

Top Left-right: in front of the Shedd Aquarium, On the Willis Tower Skydeck
Bottom Left-Right: with the Lions of Tsavo @ the Field Museum & dinner @ the Capital Grille

September has also brought some damn lemons my way. Last week during volleyball my back started getting super tight. Sometimes I get lazy and don't really bend my knees when I play (whoops!) and end up stretching my back out. Usually the soreness goes away after a day. Not this time. Within 3 hours of playing my back was totally locked up and any bending was searing, needle-like pain. Slowly over the week with the help of a good heating-pad and lots of Motrin things started to ease up. Thursday morning I felt good enough to take Ellie for a walk before work and a nice 2.4 miler afterwards. Unfortunately Friday was back to square one.

I've never had a back injury so this is all new to me. I have no idea whether to stretch or heat or ice or immobilize or what. I have no way of knowing whether it's a strain, sprain, or what. Unfortunately, a visit to the doctor is almost completely out of the question since I just took a week of unauthorized time for my honeymoon (worth it!). I'm hoping that more Motrin, some light stretching and heat heat heat will help.

All in all - I'm still up on the month. My first priority right now is to rest my back and make sure I'm completely healed before I do something stupid. My second priority is to dive into YOUR world and find out how things are going for you! Whenever I need inspiration, you guys are always there to lend some (in a big way!). For instance, knowing that my dear friend Julia @Pain Pride & Perseverance finished her first UltraMarathon yesterday has kept a smile on my face all weekend.

Keep up the good work everyone! You're all so wonderful :)

Happy Running!!