With my half marathon coming up in just a few weeks, everything has changed. When I went into the Dirty Girl 5k, I was psyched. I was starting to get addicted to the running bug, thinking about how many more races I could try. I was still slow, but up to walking to 2 minutes, jogging 4 (from not running at all).

Two days later, when I returned to the gym, the minute I started jogging I knew something was wrong. I felt lopsided and felt a sharp pain in my hamstring. It took two more days and a lot of searching my memory to figure out how I did it – hiking my leg over a sawhorse obstacle in the mud run. I was too darn stubborn to go around and didn’t even consider injury. BAD move.

It was sore enough that I didn’t work out AT all for two weeks. Another week was all elliptical. At this point it doesn’t hurt during normal everyday things but my run is still lopsided and I can only walk/run a couple miles before it starts hurting, so I still do a lot of elliptical.

A few things I learned from this (for you novice or wannabe runners out there):

  • Get advice right away – I waited a week to talk to my trainer. All I was doing was icing it and resting. He advised elevation and a hamstring sleeve – it helped immensely.
  • Regular drugstores don’t have everything – I had to go to a See The Trainer store to get my sleeve. Bonus, it is covered by Flex – well at least my plan covers it.
  • Keep the end goal end in mind. My efforts are to raise money for cancer. During the past few weeks, I’ve had major doubts. “Maybe I’m not cut out to be a runner.” If you don’t give it your all, how do you know what you’re capable of? Don’t judge your abilities by your failures or your injuries.