I started my week feeling pretty blah about running, and highly unmotivated to do anything fitness wise. I did a lot of walking which helped me finish a good audiobook (The Spare Room, by Andrea Bartz) and gave me my much needed dose of the great outdoors. I started wondering if cycling was helping me, or preventing me from healing. As the week progressed, I found some inspiration and my mood has changed. 59 miles of biking, 11 miles of walking… a few miles of running!
Mon – 1.5 miles walking, at the Dave’s Running Metropark Monday event. We went to the monthly cookout for the summer running group. There were so many delicious foods! Here is proof – I’m in two shots… caught going up for seconds (or was it thirds?)! Haha!!! Even though I’m not running right now, it was good to see my running friends.
Tues – 23 miles biking done before work today. The corn is doing great around here!
We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. It was good. Next up for the girls will probably be the Barbie movie. That looked pretty funny.
Weds – I tried to run again, in order to see my pain level. I could only run for maybe 10 seconds before the hip weakness turned into glute pain. I tried a few times and got up to 30 seconds of running before I had to stop. Ugh. I had a doctor’s appointment that didn’t end with much success. I got an x ray, and everything looked good. He referred me to a specialist who works more with manipulating hips. That will happen next week. It did sound promising though! It’s gotten to the point that my Garmin can’t even rate me because I haven’t had any running activities lately!
The disappointing topic was my newly recognized Tinnitus. I’ve had a buzzing sound in my ears (actually it’s kind of in my head!) for a while now, but I always thought it was the sound from something else, like LED lights. Apparently nothing really fixes Tinnitus, so it’s best to just mask the buzzing noise I constantly hear with white noise/music. Bummer.
Thurs – I got to go on a morning park walk with my son (2 miles) and an evening walk with my best friend (3.5 miles).. We had so much to catch up on!
Fri – Lots of biking. I started my morning with a 25 mile bike ride. It was foggy and a bit magical looking outside.
When I put my bike away I saw my bike rack and had a great idea to go mountain biking at the DTE Foundation Trail! We were going to go there a few weeks ago but didn’t, so today was the day. It was soooooo humid. This is a hilly single track bike path. It took me the same amount of time to bike these 11 miles as it did to ride 25 miles on my road bike this morning! The new strawberry Frostys from Wendy’s sure hit the spot on the drive home.
Sat – 1 mile. YES, I “ran”! It was time to test things out again, and to my surprise, I did not feel awful by the time I got to the next mailbox on my street! In fact, I got to the end of my street and I felt pretty good! I didn’t want to jinx anything, so I decided I should just do run/walk intervals. I could have went farther than 1 mile, but no need to push it. This gave me great hope!
Sun – 2 miles run/walk. Once again, I’m super nervous about running, so I ventured out for 2 miles. Both exciting, and exhausting. I took regular walk intervals just to make sure I wasn’t over doing it. Things are feeling a little suspicious, but no red flags and feeling like I’m crippling myself so that’s another win on my long journey to the Chicago marathon. The rest of the day was spent at Cedar Point, enjoying the rollercoasters 🙂
Finally, we will be saying goodbye to Nami on Monday. She is heading back to the shelter and then on to her forever home. I’m sure she will find a new family quick! She is such a cutie… but what a little tiger! She chased me all the way up the stairs to attack me!! One good reason she is leaving – we are heading on vacation this week. I’m very excited. It will be a lot of hiking (shocker!) and visiting the national parks in Washington. A fun getaway with my kids, who will both be heading to college shortly (waaa!).
Need some more inspiration? I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Check out all of the fun blogs there!
Q: Strawberry Frostys? Yay or Nah??
I prefer chocolate, but on a hot day, I would not turn one down!
Q: Anyone else deal with Tinnitus?
Sad to hear that you had pain… but happy that you can start to run a little.
Thanks for the reminder. i LOVE Frostys and I need to try the Strawberry. I’ll report back. LOL
Thanks, hopefully I’m starting my comeback. Being very cautious!
My daughter LOVES the strawberry frostys!
So… it’s good nothing showed up on the x-ray, right? But then frustrating that they can’t say, “Oh, your pain is definitely caused my THIS muscle…” or whatever. It seems promising that you had those pain-free runs at the end of the week, and that hip mobilization specialist (?) sounds promising as well. I’ll be interested to hear all about that. For tinnitus… my husband has it pretty bad, and I was having it for a while, until I CLEANED OUT MY EARS. I bought an earwax cleaner on Amazon, and it worked amazing. Yours probably isn’t caused by earwax (because someone would have caught that by now) but it might be worth a shot. Yes, no one really knows what causes it- so frustrating.
Have fun on vacation!!!
My Dr did peek in my ears and said he thought it wasn’t ear wax, but, I feel like I could benefit from a cleaning! Did it have water, or one of those tools with a camera?
I am sorry to read that you are continuing to have hip and glute pain. Have you had an MRI? I am not sure I’ve had a strawberrry frosty but I am loving the lemon granitas over here in Italy
Haven’t had an MRI. With the improvement I’ve seen in the past few days, I’m hopeful the issue is minor. And, I’m pretty sure my insurance would not cover much of that charge, so I’ll avoid an MRI as long as I can! 😆 I bet those lemon granitas are amazing!
Well, the running at the end of the week sounds encouraging. I hope you get some good news soon!
WA is beautiful. Enjoy!
Nami . . . so cute.
Oddly I’ve been having buzzing in my ears this month — which is completely new. I’ve yet to see anyone about it. I wondered about the wax, like Jen, because my husband has had that.
All I can tell you is that after dealing with my parents, hearing is precious!
I forgot to mention my positive event at the Dr visit… I hydrated like a boss and got my BUN and creatinine levels down! They had been trending up, so I was a bit concerned (seeing my dad have so many problems). I do think it was also related to having a long run a day before my prior blood test. I’m trying to be vigilant about all the things!!
Congrats! You can rarely go wrong being hydrated (except, of course, when you do LOL!). Yes I do a lot of things because of how my parents aged, but I should be so lucky, if healthy, to live as long.
Sounds like you’re starting to feel a little better, so that’s good! I’ve dealt with so many hip/glutes issues, I never know where they originate because it seems like it bounces back and forth between the two spots. One of my food quirks is that I love fresh strawberries, but don’t really care for strawberryg-flavored stuff, LOL. The frosty would probably be a hit, though.
I agree – fresh strawberries are so yummy, but strawberry ice cream just don’t compare!
I’m going to put in my 2 cents here–if you can see a sports medicine specialist, I’d recommend it. They are really good at identifying mechanical issues in the body. So are physical therapists who work with runners. Feel free to PM me if you have questions.
I have tinnitus and for the most part, I’ve learned to live with it. I’m definitely starting to have trouble hearing some things–probably due to all the loud concerts I went to in my younger days, lol
So my family Dr is a sports medicine Dr, which is why we love going to him. At my appointment he said, “come see me in my sports office”. I had no idea he had another office! I’m going to see one of his associates that he thinks really works wonders. Deals more with this kind of thing (I know, all very vague!!) My hip (pelvis?) is usually out of alignment, which seems to often cause issues.
Ugh, I am sorry you’re still dealing with hip pain. It’s so frustrating when you don’t know what is causing it and how to help it. I think it’s wise to see a specialist (it’s good that the x-ray looked good though!)
And then a tinnitus on top of that. I am sorry. I hope it’s not too bothersome.
I feel like I’m falling apart this year! I think I’ve had the tinnitus for a while though. I just never realized I was the only one who heard the buzzing!
Sorry to hear about the tinnitus. I have a friend who has it and just copes with it, like you said.
Sort of good news on running? Hopefully the upcoming vacation with hiking will be enough of a break. I’m still trying to get through to the dr’s office to get my issue checked out. I guess I’ll try one more week of phone calls (direct to voice mail that is not returned) I will try a different dr.
That is so frustrating to not get a response from your doctor! I do think the upcoming vacation will be helpful for recovery, but I’m a bit worried it won’t leave me enough time to train for Chicago! My family time is more important though, so I’ll make due with whatever happens.
oh sweet Nami, glad she’s on her way to a forever home! Enjoy your trip to Washington!
Oh, that sweet kitty! She’s so fierce! Rawr!
Never had a strawberry frosty. I think chocolate is my fave, but I would try it for sure.
I am glad you are feeling better. Go easy.
ooh i hope the running is really going to happen, pain -free soon. good to test the waters but totally get why you would be cautious. love all your cycling and walking – two activities I sometimes would rather do than run (not lately, so that’s good!).
I have tinnitus and it sucks goats. Mine has gotten worse over the years and I even had hearing aids (for masking) but it just made me more crazy. sometimes when I’m very stressed or upset the noise is literally deafening. So I have to try my best to keep calm. Not always easy depending on the situation. I also had therapy to help me recognise triggers and to give me some tools to deal with my stress.
Excited for your vacation!!
Have fun in Washington! Can’t wait to read all about your adventures.
Ugh on the continued hip/glute pain, but it sounds like there’s a slither of hope with your two comfortable short runs. I hope the specialist can help and finally get you on the road to recovery.
Sorry to hear you have tinnitus. A few years ago I was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease which includes tinnitus as one of the symptoms. Like you, I didn’t realize I had tinnitus and just thought I was hearing environmental sounds.