thoughts from an injured runner

I am surviving...surviving on the machines and yoga videos. I haven't had a lot of time to work out in general this week (yay work) and honestly, I took Tuesday off because I was in too crappy of a mood to really do much of anything. 'Cuz who wants to basically be told "We don't know why you hurt and when you won't hurt and when you can run again"?

Oh, and my entire LASIK fund went to pay for my MRI the other day. I got a 10% discount for paying upfront, too.

I'm hanging in there, really. I'm managing to keep things pretty light and positive overall, and trying hard to accept the unknown. Negative, often unrealistic thoughts, creep in any time anyone has a bad experience. But the negative thoughts need an outlet, so here, the unpretty thoughts of an injured runner:

• It is finally the perfect running weather that I've been waiting for....and I AM NOT OUTSIDE RUNNING IN IT.
• What if I'm not able to run again until it's 85 degrees with 90% humidity??
• How slow am I going to be, and how crappy is my endurance going to be, once I can run again? How long is it going to take me to regain that? Is my first marathon going to take me 6 hours?
• It's really really unfair that other people can train for a marathon without injury and I screw something up. NOT FAIR. *stomps feet* (For the record, I don't wish injury on ANYONE...I just wish lack of injury on me.)
• Yes, there will be other marathons, but the Pig is local and has great crowds. I want my first marathon to be a great experience and what if I can't find another one that's as good?
• I'm gonna get faaaaat. (Actually, I'm down a few pounds. When I'm stressed, I don't eat - not on purpose, it just kills my appetite. When I'm happy (and/or training for a marathon), I eat a lot.
• I am sick of people asking me why I'm limping and I don't have a good answer for them because I'm not entirely sure what's wrong.
• HOW THE EFF LONG DO I HAVE TO LIMP, anyway?! When I sprained my ankle and when I tore my knee, I didn't limp for this long.
• Between the training group fee, registration fees for races I can't do, and the medical expenses, don't even get me started on how pricey this is going to be.
• What if I'm afraid to run again because I'm afraid of hurting myself? Happened with roller derby (although to be fair, derby is a sport where you fall 1,532,400 times per game. Risk of injury is a very real fear anyway.)
• It is infinitely harder to psych myself up for a trip to the gym (besides for yoga or circuit training - which I'm not even sure I'm allowed to do) than to psych myself up to go for a run.
• What if there is something I could be doing to fix this and I'm not doing it??
• Is all the money I'm spending on MRI's and possibly PT going to be worth it, or is it going to have the same end result?
• Maybe the chiro would have fixed me completely in another session or two.

OK. That's all I can think of at the moment. Keep in mind that I'm aware that some of that is unrealistic and irrational. Also keep in mind that, contrary to popular belief, just because someone is a therapist does NOT mean that they always have full control over their own thoughts and they can always cope with things 100% effectively, and that was me finding a place for all the negativity so that hopefully it doesn't stick too much.

I don't really have any positive thoughts - I can't think of a silver lining - but I do have the things I'm going to try to do to cope with this:

• Explore some other interests that I have time for now - like practicing golfing again, shooting - husband and I have talked about gun ownership for some time now, and he's trying to help me meet my need for stress relief.
• Work on other sports. I've considered triathlons in the past; right now I can shift my focus to swimming and biking. I'm working on options to get some help with my swimming form. The only bike I have is an old boys' mountain bike, which is so slow, and I couldn't really use it in a race, but I can at least take it out and ride it.
• I'm hoping to at least do the Pig half. That will make up for this weekend's half that I'm not doing, and it will still give me a chance to at least run part of the full pig with all the full runners.
• I'm half seriously considering starting an injured runners' support group and advertising at the Running Spot. We could meet at a bar once a week. Maybe others would need this as much as I do.

Yeah, all my motivational thinking works so much better when I'm trying to get through a long run, rather than when I'm trying to get through recovery. Date with the doc on Wednesday to find out what the MRI has  osay about all this.