Doing Not Thinking Update 5

This week’s installment of Doing Not Thinking Challenge brought to you by the letter “M” for motivation.

As has been the routine for the last four weeks, I didn’t run over the weekend. Saturday I had some reason but I don’t remember it now and Sunday it *poured* Hurricane Ike style. The rain let up for a while during the day so we went to the fire department BBQ. By the time we got home it was wind down time. But then we got a call and headed to the neighboring town for mutual aid. Thankfully we weren’t there long.

Monday I ran a little bit but found my calf was still wonky. I did the stretching routine to add more calf stretches but it didn’t seem to matter as I could only run for a short distance before my calf started “acting up.” I hope this goes away soon. Any suggestions?

Tuesday I didn’t run but I did go to the massage therapist. She worked on my calf saying “it’s really tight.” She also worked my back and hamstrings a lot so I can stretch my back some more. And she gave me a vital piece of information: my abdominal muscles are weak which is why my lower back hurts when I stand for long periods of time. I have to find some ab strengthening exercises. Honestly, I always thought my lower back hurt because I put a lot of pressure on it by standing around (which you do a lot of in EMS). Apparently my stomach muscles don’t support my back muscles as they should.

Wednesday I was sore as hell from the massage. I was also TIRED. When Cheryl worked on my back, legs, and neck she focused on some really big spasms (knots) which had been gathering for a while (I hadn’t been to see her since March). As she got the muscles to relax a lot of the toxins — which build up to create the spasm — were released. This always makes me tired. Instead of lounging around like I usually do I got up, did my stretching, then ran. I didn’t run that much but I can see there is a minuscule improvement. After I got home I was just *exhausted*. I tried to do some homework but found my back hurt so bad I almost called Cheryl back and asked her if she was trying to kill me. I laid down for a nap and woke up refreshed and pain free (well, mostly).

Today is Friday and I should run but I’m not feeling very motivated. When I first got up it was COLD as the North Pole out there then I got on the phone. Now I’m sitting here typing and the idea of stretching and running is as appealing as pulling my lower lip over my head to the nape of my neck.

I found I had to rework my goals a little bit regarding this challenge. Originally my short term goal was to stretch then walk to get the mail every day; my medium term goal was to get up and go; and my long term goal was to run, run, run! Yea, that’s all a little vague so I reworked my goals a bit. Now my goals look like this: short term goal: stretch and run every other day; medium term goal: um, I can’t think of one; long term goal: run to Old Hill Village from home without stopping by December 15.