Running pic

Running pic
Yup, that's me!

Monday, February 18, 2013

IIf I keep telling myself swimming is fun perhaps I will begin to believe it


Awesome.  I get added to the Chicago Run Bloggers blogroll just as this blog turns into a sobfest about injury recovery time with a bonus side of swimming as rehab.  Swimming = boring unless you are Michael Phelps or that other douchebag from the Olympics whose name I can’t even remember.

I had both setbacks and positive things happen this weekend. On the setback front I did something sort of stupid – but I swear I didn’t mean to.  On Saturday morning I was heading to a CorePower yoga class and because I’m a chronic over-sleeper I was running late.  I parked my car and got my meter sticker and without thinking I turned and started running back to my car to put it on the dashboard. I made it four steps and felt something shift in my calf – painfully.  I limped into class and lasted about 10 minutes – no down dogs for me. I came home and promptly burst into tears completely freaking out my husband. I should change the wording on my blog photo to read: Look at the smile! Whoever thought I’d burst into tears because I can’t run!

On the positive side later that day I was helping a friend look for her lost cat and I knelt down to look under a car. As I got up I felt the same shift in my calf but when I stood up it felt better.  Not like ‘Let’s go for a run!’ better but more like ‘not gimping around as much’ better. So I’ve been icing and wearing compression socks and not even thinking about running.  I went to the gym yesterday and swam for a mile.  I don’t know how swimmers do it – it’s so incredibly boring. And, if I may, I’m going to complain about my gym for a moment. I belong to Galter Life Center and normally I love them.  It’s a very welcoming place for people of all abilities, ages and sizes.  Because it’s a medical fitness facility there’s a heavy emphasis on rehabilitation, especially cardiac rehab so you see many older people who are in not so great shape.  But, it’s heartening to see them trying to make a change for the better.  I joined many, many years ago so I never Yelped reviews for Galter before I joined, but now I occasionally read the reviews and there is an alarming trend of crappy customer service that is getting them one and two star reviews.  I was on the receiving end of the potentially crappy customer service yesterday.  I figure if I’m going to be stuck swimming for several weeks then I might as well take a few private lessons to see if I can better my breast stroke and become more efficient.  I filled out the request for at the front desk and the attendant took it and told me someone would be calling me in about 4 weeks.  Wha? I told her I was hoping that 4 weeks would be the time of my rehab and I wanted to take these lessons sooner rather than later.  She marked the form to call me asap, but really? Why would it take 4 weeks for someone to call to schedule a swim lesson? I figure whoever runs the swim program would just sit down once a week and call all the people who requested lessons and be done with it – not sit down once a month. Whatever.  If they don’t want my money I can muddle through with my poor form without them. I also sent my old Pilates instructor an e-mail to see if he thought Pilates might be a good fit.

My proactive move for today was to call my doctor to make an appointment (tomorrow! Yay for being flexible!) so I can get a referral for physical therapy.  I know I won’t be able to get a definitive answer as to when I can hit the pavement again, but I’d like to know if it’s OK to swim and maybe get suggestions of some other things I can do while I wait and see if there’s anything I can do to speed up the process.

So, sorry if you tuned in looking for a running blog and found a whiney rehab/swim blog instead but for the next few weeks it’s what I’ve got going on.  Hopefully there will be some comedy gold in petty swim lane spats, hot tub mishaps and Pilates mayhem.  Unlikely, but you never know.

No comments:

Post a Comment