I read back to my Sunday post again and chuckle about knowing my back and knowing how to manage the pain. I have been crooked and in pain the last two days, and have no intention of running for probably a week or two at this point. I don’t think that the pain is directly related to the long run on Sunday, but I did have an active Christmas Eve, and spent too much time sitting on the floor in an awkward position. It wasn’t bad when I woke up Christmas Morning, until I decided to sit on the floor with my 6 year old and play. After that, i ended up crooked and it only got worse. I have been on the couch, resting for two days now, I intend to hit my OLD chiropractor today if I can, and am questioning how long I am going to be out. I’m getting to a do or die area of the marathon training. if I miss 2 weeks with this injury, which is possible, I may not make that marathon.

I’ll say this again, DON’T RUN WITH BACK PAIN! I don’t think that long run helped me at all, and NOT taking it easy has once again caused me to miss runs. It sucks. I have to get this healed because I intend to be changing employment in the next 3 weeks, I can’t goto a new job with this pain.

I’m not sure how many updates i’ll provide since i’m not training anymore, but i’ll post my current status here as I can. I’m a little defeated and deflated, and don’t really care anymore. I think i’m tired of the injuries and living with pain, I made that statement back during the Steamtown training as well. It seemed every week something else was hurting, and if I wasn’t hurting, I was worried about having something hurting. Maybe i’m just not cut out for this.

I guess you can say that my motivation is gone, really gone. I’m not sure if I’ll get it back at this point, so we’ll see.

EDIT (later in the day) — I visited my old chiropractor (Dr. Brad) and he did a full workup on me and determined that my back pain is NOT a herniated disk. Instead, I have an irritated sacroiliac joint, which is located in the base of the back and connects the spine to the pelvic region. He did a series of moves and things with me to make that consensus. After doing some reading, i do believe thats what it is. He said it should heal in a few days (or at least the pain should subside in a few days). Maybe i’m not out of commission yet, we’ll have to wait and see. I’m sleeping on the hard floor with my legs up, using ice and then heat, and then ice again and i’m moving on it. Thats the important part is to keep moving on it ….. i’ll definitely provide an update soon.