tl;dr: I Ran And It Didn't Hurt

Yesterday my trainer had a scheduling conflict, and couldn't meet up with me. I asked him if I could try running a bit on my own to test out my butt. He gave me the go-ahead, as long as I fully warmed up, took it SLOW, stretched a BUNCH, and stopped if things hurt.

I decided to merge my warm up with my pet-owner-duties, and walked the dog at a semi-brisk pace (with pauses for him to eat poop and stare at stray cats). I made a mental note that I was moving faster than I had on Thursday, when walking quickly on the treadmill hurt. And I had no pain. Score.

We did a mile loop, landing me back at home to stretch in private, so I wasn't doing skyward pelvic thrusts for the world to see.

I ran through my six stretches (which I will outline later in this post, in case you are just DYING to know), taking my time, trying to relax in to each stretch.

And then I headed out the door.

I took the same one mile loop, this time at a slow, slow jog. I played with the pace a bit. If I went too fast I could feel my butt muscle twinging. As it was, I was ridiculously aware of the muscle. It was always *there*. That is more a product of my paranoia than actual injury, I'm sure.

I don't know what my pace was. If I tried to track it I would have tried to push it.

I finished the mile loop, ducked back into my house, and ran through my stretches again, a little quicker.

I clocked another two miles this way.

3 miles ran.



Now, I'll admit, they weren't amazing miles. I wasn't expecting them to be, speed wise, but the gates of Valhalla did not open up for me and crown me their viking queen because I could run again. I did not weep tears of joy at the knees of Panacea and Hermes.

No one likes being injured, but I can't say I didn't enjoy the forced race. My natural state is one of extreme laziness. My peers don't believe me because I run and work out, but I do these to fight my natural state (and to be able to carry ALL the groceries in from the car in one go).

Anyway.

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The Stretches

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, regardless of what my email says. My trainer is not a doctor. You are probably not a doctor. My dog is a doctor, but it's a ph.d, so it doesn't count. And I'm probably doing these stretches poorly because I am carved from the wood of an inflexible tree. That fable about the oak tree and the reeds or something, with a lot of wind and the tree falls over because it can't bend or something? They wrote that about my great great grandfather. Who was a tree. I swear. A lot. Frequently. And sometimes around children. What?

1. Bridges. Aka thrust your pelvis to the sky. Aka when my trainer assists me with these sometimes he kneels too close to me and it feels awkward, but not in a bad way.

Lie on your back with your knees bent so your feet are right under your butt. Slowly thrust your pelvis to the sky like you're humping a ghost in an 80s workout video. Hold at the time for a beat. Repeat 10-15 times.



2. Touching Your Toes Like A Normy. Aka I have never ever ever in the history of Rose been able to successfully do this stretch. Aka I hate people who can touch their foreheads to their knees and wrap their elbows around their toes or whatever. It's not normal.

If you have never heard of this stretch then you probably shouldn't be doing it anyway so I'm not going to describe it. Except to say that on a good day I can reach past my knees. All these pictures were taken during my cool down stretching, when my body was most flexible. Which means this is the absolute best I can do. Yup.




3. Something Something Ballet Something Something. To be fair, I never pay attention to what my trainer calls things. I usually name things myself. This is "The Ballet Thing, Right?" My back should be flatter, and my legs are probably positioned wrong.




4. The Belt Buckle. Aka another pelvis thruster. My trainer's description for this is "pretend you have a belt buckle on. Tilt your pelvis so your belt buckle would be looking up at the sky." People who wear belt buckles are weird, apparently. This one feels really awkward to do in public, but feels really good.



5. Put Your Leg Up On Something, Bend At The Hip, and Point Your Toe Toward You. aka at least TRY to do that. My trainer makes fun of me when I make these faces during stretching, and now you can, too!



6. Butt Muscle Stretch. All the previous stretches were hold overs from my "my back hurts!!!" days. This is the newest in my "I should be doing these even when I'm not injured but that's not going to happen" routine, and hits the injured muscle directly. I don't know what it's called. I don't know if I'm doing it "right." All I know is, my way stretches out the muscle, and holy crap feels good. As long as I don't fall over.



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A few weeks ago the cat peed on the bed a few times, in retaliation for a few different things. So now, after we wake up, we cover the bed with a sheet of plastic left over from when we remodeled the house a bit. She doesn't care (but, she hasn't peed the bed since).



In an effort to get the cat to not live under the bed 99% of the day, we bought baby gates to separate the cat and dog. The cat likes to sit on her sit and mock the dog. The dog likes to look sad an pathetic.



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I was good about cooking and eating most of this week, low sodium by home cooking is the easiest way to go, but last night my husband offered to get El Pollo Loco on his way home from work. For those of you not in the know, El Pollo Loco is crazy, crazy (heh) good grilled fast food chicken. We may or may not have served their chicken at out wedding. It's delicious, okay?

So, sodium went out the window. And it was delicious.

But, that means I didn't cook last night, which means I don't have leftovers for lunch. And trying to eat a lower sodium lunch (I'm serious about not wanting to be bloated up for Halloween, you guys. My costume is REALLY tight) while eating out (heh) is tough. Subway is out, because I will only eat the super shitty salty meats. Mexican is out because it's a minefield of sodium goodness.

See, this is why I eat whatever I want most of the time. SO much easier.

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I asked for, and received permission to run again today. I'll probably follow the same routine. Maybe one fewer stretching session. We'll see. I want to be smart about this, but I don't want to enable my laziness. Fine lines here, people. And listen, being lazy is fine, but I've half assed two marathons already. It's probably time to try to a time that's not completely mortifying, you know?