SO HARD TO DO

I've adopted a new tactic to heal. I'm doing nothing. A little walking, a little stretching, a little icing. To me that's nothing. I'm not:

-Working thru the injuries.
-Alternate training around them.
-Backing off when it starts to hurt.
-Doing easy stuff like yoga, but cautously.

No, nothing. That's my plan. Because I've tried training carefully. I've run only on grass fields, the bridal path and the reservoir loop. I've run 11 and 12 minute miles. I've gone so slowly on the few down hills that I might as well have been walking. I've worked hard only on the non impact Elliptical. And I've challenged myself with power yoga in a heated room and yoga is definitely not easy for me. Yet all I've gotten from this is a sense of falling out of shape and seeing only the scantest progress in these nagging injuries. And now a slightly pulled hamstring has been added to my out of kilter list. So that's why I've decided to do nothing.

And THAT is just the hardest thing to do.

Oh, I can do it for awhile and feel calm about it. The other day I was stretching in the gym when a friend approached and asked if I was doing the NYC Marathon. When I explained that these little hurts prevented me from doing so, she responded: "You look very peaceful."

Well, I like peaceful and I felt pleased with her comment. I though that it's a sign of mental health to make something good (peacefulness) out of something bad (forced, limited inactivity).

But the good feelings don't last very long. I get antsy. I want to do what I love. I want to be athletic and competitive and challenge myself. And even now I know that I can. I could weight train. I could (carefully) do Hot Power Yoga. I could (perhaps) do the elliptical. Certainly I could swim. But any of them could also exacerbate one or more of the things that ail me. Probably not swimming but that's the most inconvenient and boring.

So I force myself to do nothing. At least for a few days more. I do non physical things that are good. I remind myself that missing a few more days won't have such a terribly negative affect and that when I'm ready I'll come back strong. And then it's okay. And then it's not. So I make plans that I so far manage to keep myself from enacting.

Man, this nothingness is a challenge. It is really hard to do!!