being on the injured reserve list
I'm injured and not running again, but this time by choice. What a difference it makes to my mental state.
Backing up...I've been semi-permanently injured twice in my life. Once took me out of running for several years, and then again for about 9 months. Being injured is frustrating. I would see runners while I was driving around and start crying and want to drive my car up and over the curb. Both times I had a "mysterious" injury that no one could figure out - of course, both times this was total crap, and I was just not going to the right doctors.
Last year when I got hurt I decided to swim. I hate swimming. HATE IT. I don't like water in my ears. My nose. I don't like jumping in the cold water and feeling like I'm going to drown if I stop and everyone is so much faster than me and then I go home and want to EAT EVERYTHING. Why does chlorine make me hungry? Anyhow, I started swimming while doctors started trying to figure out what was wrong with my foot ("there could be a very small spider in it." "A spider?" "sure. let's try some fairy dust and send her back to work hahahaha" etc).
So I started swimming and very soon realized that tiny little niggling pain I've sorta always ignored has turned into OMG WHAT IS THAT when I "pull" my right arm though. After a few rounds with my othro who fixed my leg the first time ("ITBS? You went to a doctor that's never heard of that???") he finally asks me - do I want a cortisone shot/see ya in 3 months or do I finally want to fix it?
So I decided to fix it. He went in on Thursday with the TV-on-a-stick and the steak knife and presto-chango, I've got a fancy new shoulder. But my fancy new shoulder means no running for a few weeks. And my head is clear and I'm okay with that. I'm still dying to get back out there, especially after the week of cramming that was oddly awesome just before I went under, but I'm calm and mostly reasonable about the healing process.