Physical Therapy, or Why I Wimped out of the Traveller 100

All talk, no dance.  Yes, I am injured.  Yes, I also chickened out.  A little from column A, a little from column B.

B'gawk!

I hadn't actually signed up yet, but I really wanted to.  Sign up, that is.  What I ended up not being sure of, though, is that I actually wanted to run the race.

The main problem is that I told everybody I know that I was going to attempt the AT100 this year.  My running friends, my co-workers, random people from across the state that I happened to run into during training... it's hard to keep that kind of training under wraps.  Bailer-outers earn questionable reputations.  On the other hand, folks got their own lives to worry about. We'll all get over it.

And here I am nursing a bit of ITBS.  While it is frequently sore (in a low-grade, general way), it seemed worse and more acute than usual one evening while out for a powerwalk in my neighborhood.  Same story the next morning when I tried again.  So I stopped.  I decided that I was injured, set up physical therapy, and shifted gears completely.  And I felt...

Relieved.  

I'm glad that a sense of relief has settled on me, rather than disappointment. But I'm also concerned about the wimp factor. Why can't I pull the trigger? What would have happened? Nothing? Everything?? 

Instead, I'm back on the road for shorter distances and quality speed (which isn't really what we would call "speed", but hopefully that changes). PT seems to be helping. It's not cheap, but I'm happy with the decision so far because my own ill-devised treatment protocol is pretty ineffective, (which is the understatement of the year... see my 37 past posts about ITBS).  If I can get some good, biomechanically-sound advice, perhaps that will help me long term. 

Also... 

I've taken a good, hard look at my nutrition during the last 2 weeks.  It had gotten bad.  Training for a hundo meant that I practiced eating as much as possible before and during the run, and practiced burning that fuel as slowly and efficiently as possible. And as it turns out, I'm pretty efficient at storing fuel. So, a few pounds that settled in need to come back off, and I need to get as un-inflamed as possible.  Just take a little break, lay low, and re-set.  Get right, get healthy, and look forward to the next one.  We got this.

Make friends with the BOSU, and you'll never be alone.