I'm Quitting

After weeks and weeks of soul searching and deliberation, I have decided that I am no longer going to do any long distance running.

I will not be running the Bayshore half marathon on May 26, like I had planned, and I do not intend on training for any races in the foreseeable future.

My body just can't take any more, and it has reached the point where I no longer feel like it is worth it.

The knee injury that I dealt with when I ran Indy last year has never completely let up. I can feel it during every run, and even the 6 months that I took off while trying to get my ankle to heal didn't seem to make any improvement to it at all. When I wasn't running, it had stopped hurting, but as soon as I started back up it kicked in again. Now, it pretty much hurts all the time, whether I am running or not. It hurts as I stand all day at work. It hurts when I am kneeling down pulling weeds. It hurts when I have to stand in one place for too long. It hurts when I am sitting and have to keep it bent for long time periods. I'm just tired of it.

And of course, there is the ankle that doesn't seem to want to heal. Every run for the past few weeks it has been talking to me. I'm waiting for it to give out again at any second, and then I'll be back to not even being able to walk.

For the past year and a half I have been having issues with my hips. For the longest time it was just the right one, but the left one has started in the past few months as well. If I sit for longer than 10 minutes, I literally have a hard time standing back up. It feels like my hips "lock" themselves in the sitting position and won't release for me to stand. It takes me a full 30 seconds or so to go from a sitting position to a standing one. I feel like I am 82 not 32! Up until I started training for this race, I wasn't having any hip issues while running only when going from sitting to standing, but the past few months my right one has really been bothering me while running as well.

I think the final straw is that now my very lower back, almost near my tailbone has started to bother me. It lets up if I stop running for a week, and then starts back up as soon as I try to run again. It affects me when I sit and when I try to sleep. I just can't find a comfortable position no matter what I do.

I've just plain had enough of the pain. It's starting to affect my life.

I went to a friend's college graduation last week and we keep going from sitting to standing and I was having a hard time with it. My hip didn't want to let me actually stand up, and my knee was bothering me once I got there.

I went to see Spiderman 3 over the weekend, and sitting in the theater that long without being able to straighten out my knee was really bother it.

All of this pain is self inflicted. If I stop running, it should go away. So, I'm going to stop running.

But, that doesn't mean that I'm going to fall off the face of the earth, either!

Running is ingrained in who I am, and I will probably still do a few miles here and there to try to keep in shape, maybe run a few 5k's once I feel like I've put myself back together.

I've been giving some thought to giving biking another chance and riding on a more regular basis.

I used to go to the gym on a regular basis, and maybe I'll get back in to lifting weights.

I've really been enjoying my yoga class and am thinking about continuing with that.

Maybe I'll just start babbling about the rest of my crazy life.

I haven't decided.

I'm closing one door (but keeping it cracked), and in the mean time I will be searching for the next one that I'm going to open.

And in honor of my new path, I'm changing the name of my blog from Adventures in Running to The Adventures of Runnergirl to reflect that the winding road of life is taking me in a new direction.

So, stick around and see where I go from here....