I’ve accepted the fact that at this point, i’m not sure when marathon training will start up again. My back feels a little better today than it did yesterday and I was able to return to work. It still hurts slightly when I move around, but its not excruciating like it was (although there are some times when it does get like, depending on what i’m doing). I will do no cross-training, or running, until I can move pain-free. And even when I can move pain-free, I will take it easy in the beginning and ease back into it. I don’t ever want to feel the pain I had on Sunday again, it was awful!

Advice to anyone out there reading my stories, if you’re injured, take the time off. I didn’t listen to my body when my back hurt on Thursday, and ran the weekend anyway. Saturday was fine, and I know I reinjured things on Sunday (if not made things worse), so it was NOT a smart move. My blog entry from Thursday said I was going to take the weekend off, and I didn’t listen. Now I am paying the price, because it may be a week or two until I return to running at all (let alone marathon training) …. I just HAD to get that 12 miler in, eh? I couldn’t stop …

Regardless, I’m at work again, and moving around, trying to get back into life. I expect to get out and a get a walk in today after lunch. I want to remain as active as I can without injuring myself. The doctor even says that I shouldn’t be laying in bed or sitting all day, so I take a walk every 20-30 minutes after sitting at work. It seems to be working. I brought the Advanced Marathoning book with me to rework my training plan. I figure i’ll probably do a combined Pfitz 18/55 and 12/55 plan, and maybe even make it a 15 week plan or 14 week plan, again it depends, but it gives me something to work towards.

I’m a trooper, and I work hard and don’t like being injured, so I know I will bounce back from this. Everything I go through is a lesson though, although I wish I knew what I did to hurt my back in the first place, remember, I did my Diamond Run warmup without any pain or anything, then when I went to the starting line, it suddenly started getting tight …. then WHAMO, it hit me … I guess i’ll never know.

So I’ll keep updating the blog with my status … ibuprofen and Norflex are my friends right now (norflex is the muscle relaxer the doctor put me on). I did get the chiropractor yesterday, and he stretched me out as best as he could, did the electrolysis machine (which felt good), so we’ll keep that up too.