Working through injury

I started this post by keeping track of the workouts because I need to be held accountable, but by Tuesday, I thought I was headed for a disastrous workout week. I had a pretty good start:

Sunday - 1 hour of hatha yoga
Monday - 1 hour of hot vin yoga

Tuesday was supposed to be a run day. I was looking forward to getting in 3+ miles after I visited the sports med guy. I haven't seen him in over a week and my ankle and IT bands are in pretty bad shape. Lets be real, the sports med guy is necessary in my world; it takes my body forever heal. He's still working on my ankle injury from December. Now seeing that I'm always abusing some part of my body, I'm quite certain it'll never heal.

So after my visit on Tuesday, I headed home to wait until about 7:30p to run. It's just so freaking hot before then. But as I was walking around, deciding on dinner, getting changed, all the normal stuff I do, I realized my hamstring and ankle were aching; more than normal. There were several things I was looking forward to doing throughout the week that would not be possible if I pulled a hamstring or inflamed my ankle again. So I decided to take the day off... which means I took 2 days off because of Wednesdays schedule.

My control freak brain moved directly to.... 2 days off....oh no.... what happens if I take 2 days off in a row. Taking two days off in my world is not normal if there's not a compelling kid reason (like sports practice) I kept telling myself that my body says "take the day off," and I encourage everyone to listen to their body. So I tried to take my own advice.

I feel confident now to say this is my lifestyle, and I enjoy it. This is not fad or a passing whim I'm going to get over. But even knowing and having confidence in that, I still worry about back sliding too much. I'm wondering if I'm the only one?

After taking my two days off, I was feeling much better. I really needed the rest days. On Thursday I got to work out on a Power Trail in Colorado. I did 4.5 miles in the hills. Being from Houston where everything is flat, that's an accomplishment. And I got in another 2.5 miles on the Power Trail and a yoga workout on Friday. Saturday was a travel day.

I still haven't figured out how to rotate these in the blog. Yes, I suck.

I was really worried about the week being a fitness failure, but it turned out to be a "better than average" week with the power trail. I did all that control freak fretting for nothing! Overall, its good to listen to your body. That is one of the many things that yoga has taught me. (That, and not everything has to be a competition). I am really pleased with how this week's workout turned out!

What do you do when you need to have a rest day, and you don't have a compelling reason?

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