I went out for a run immediately after my last blog post. I made sure I warmed up and stretched before leaving the house and felt really excellent. Very strong, very happy with how I was going. When I was 3 and a half miles in I started to run up a relatively small hill and immediately felt my calf tighten up. Stupidly I thought it was just a niggle, and so continued running but by the time I got home I knew I was limping as I ran.
Once I was home I knew straight away that I had a problem with my calf muscle, and what started as a bit of an ache proceeded to become something that was damn sore. I immediately contacted David Fairlamb via twitter to find out what I should do and he immediately told me to get some ice on it and rest!
As instructed I have iced my calf for 20 mins at a time with my high-tec ice-pack, aka a bag of frozen mixed-veg pack, several times a day. I have been resting my leg as much as a single mam with three kids who is doing a degree at University can do, I've been taking some paracetamol and ibuprofen and just trying not to worry.
However my goal of doing the Great North Run next year is firmly in the forefront of my mind and I have my runs for next year planned so that I can get to be able to do the half-marathon come next September. So the idea of having no running for at least two weeks, and possibly longer depending on how long this injury takes to heal has really knocked me.
What has really affected me though is how my head has been messed up by this. This part of my blog has been really hard for me to write, and I guess it's because I have to be honest about some really hard stuff. Mental heath is still a taboo subject and one that can be so difficult to share with others, but I feel that it's only right that I am honest about the difficulties I am facing as well as the triumph's that I have on this journey. I feel really depressed by getting injured and I mean really depressed. I have living with depression since I was a teenager, and its a massive part of my underlying illness. My eating in the past has always been an emotional thing, and as soon as depression kicks in my eating goes off the rails. I have also made myself sick in the past to get rid of the food I have eaten
I wish I could say that my eating hasn't been affected but it has. I am really angry that I have allowed myself this to happen. I have struggled with alcoholism, and even though its hard it doesn't compared to my addiction to eating shite. So now I am beating myself up about eating. I have had several times since Tuesday when I have eaten something and felt so angry about it afterwards. I even thought about making myself throw up at one point to purge myself of the food. So now my biggest issue is not the injury, but dealing with the emotions that go along with it.
I am seeing my care manager and my occupational therapist this week, and I will be honest with them about what is happening. The depression has left me feeling tired and I am being so hard on myself. I want to be able to do everything that I see other people doing, and I hate the limitations that the depression puts on me. I also know that this journey is a (half) marathon and not a sprint, and I can't let this blip affect me in the long run.
So now it's about accepting the support I need to get through this spell, making sure I don't start running again before my calf is healed, finding some exercise I can do in the meantime to keep me going and getting my eating back on track. New goals for this little period, but the little goals all lead to the big goal.
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