My Worst Year Yet!

Honestly after last year, I did not think it could get much worse. I missed like the first four months of running, and then finally got around to training in June, but I still pulled it all together for a great Fall racing season, and this year seemed like it was going to be the same except nothing came out of it. There was no good training block, and there were no good races.

Actually, there were no races. I only had two small periods when I ran at all, and the first one ended because I ended up not feeling good, and I did not even get to finish the year on a positive note, because I got the flu and just could not move.

Undoubtedly, this year was awful, but that does not mean that there was nothing to be gained from it. I was stronger than I have ever been before this year. At the beginning of the year when I was not running, I put all my energy into weightlifting, and I was making gains. I made it up to 190 pounds, and it was pure muscle. I completely changed my diet, and I had an incredible time spending two hours a day at the gym. I was lifting heavier weights than ever, and although it was not as fulfilling as running an incredible race, I would still get pretty excited when I could lift more than last time.

Needless to say, that sadly ended, because at some point, it felt like this was hurting my injury even more, and I just quit going to the gym, even though doctors said that this should not have been affecting my shin, they were wrong. So I did what I do best, I adapted. I made up a workout I could do at home and not aggravate my shin. It took some refining, but now I have a 70-minute workout that gets the job done, and it burns about 400 calories. Then for Christmas, I got some lightweight dumbbells to incorporate, which has led to more fine tuning and experimentation, hopefully all for the better.

The wildest part of this whole year has been my body transformation. As I mentioned, I made it all the up to 190 pounds when I was at my biggest this year, and when I stopped going to the gym, those pounds just shed off me. At the end of the year, I sat at 168, so a loss of over 20 pounds, and it was all muscle, which is sad. I looked freaking great back in March. Oh well. There was an interim period though where it felt like it was hard to feel good about myself and how I looked. Currently, when I am working out 70 minutes and running four or more miles, what I eat is not a huge concern, but when I was just doing the workout with little to no cardio, it felt like my belly was starting to stack against me in a way I did not like. I have self-control, but man do I love food and eating a ton of it. So there were times this year when balancing my output with my input was tough. This was the first Thanksgiving when it took me weeks to lose Thanksgiving weight, but I would never with hold myself from the buttery greasy glory of all the amazing foods Thanksgiving has to offer.

So what happened to me? Technically, I am still not sure. As I have written and told people before, I went to the doctors, eventually got an MRI, and I was told that I had a stress reaction in my shin. I cannot tell you how many weeks I took off this year from running, but enough that any non-broken bone should have healed, and it did not. I went to physical therapy for my shin and nothing helped. Really, it makes no sense. Then I got a second answer. Lauren, from Miles & Macros, asked her PT about my conundrum in November, and he said that it could be my back. Similar to how sciatica can go all the way to your foot, a back injury can cause your shin to hurt, and after a quick google, it can be seen that this is true.

This changed things. For the first time in half a year, I had hope again. Like Lauren said, I probably should have scheduled an initial PT consultation with this guy, and I still might, but instead, I do what I do best, I googled it and found stretches and exercises for what I have decided now is my ailing back, and honestly, it has made a difference. Is it perfect? No. But is it better than it was? Yes! I have been heavily massaging my back, and I have made it the focus of my stretching and rolling time.

It has helped that the past two weeks, I have not had school, and the three weeks before that, I had three snow days to limit work, and before that was Thanksgiving, so my body has been receiving above average rest from work. This has been great. My baseline for how I feel is how my leg does in the gym at work. It is the only time when I am standing for a prolonged period during my day. Since I have started my back stretching, rolling, and strengthening, my leg has made it longer in this period without starting to feel inflamed.

I do have a comparison that went well too. On Saturday, I went to a kid’s party, and it was at a play place, and I was on my feet moving around like I would at the gym at work, and I basically went the whole time without feeling inflammation. The other thing that changed was I bought a back brace. So if it really were just an inflamed shin, this would have done nothing, but that was not the case. This has really convinced me that it is my back, and I do not think this is a placebo, because I was not expecting to feel that good standing around for that long. A silver lining to start the year.

The back brace also works as a diet. I went out to eat with my dad shortly after I got it,

and I ordered a Cuban sandwich, and it came with a big order of fries. While eating, I quickly

became full. I went to the bathroom and loosened the brace, and then I was ready to go again. I

finished all my food after that.

Another recent gift has entertained me with its diet critique, and that is my Oura ring that Mya got me for Christmas. The app has a feature where you can log your meal or take a picture of it, and it will rate it for you. I have already changed my breakfast because of this. For the past year, I had been having a smoothie constating of skim milk, protein powder, banana, and peanut butter, but this app absolutely trashed that and put it in the lowest bracket, and it was hurt even more if I said I had a protein bar with it.

So I switched to oatmeal with the same stuff in it, and it loves that! It thinks the protein powder is rife with sugar, even though it is not. I looked at the label the powder is fine, but the bar was not. It hates my granola bar and apple sauce with lunch too for the same reason. So my diet that I thought was pretty good has been torn down by this device. I do not fully trust it because I will say that I had two beers and nuts, and it will put that into the good category, but a protein smoothie is limited? I mean I am all for this way of thinking, but I have my reservations.

I only logged a little over 600 miles this year, which is honestly abysmal for me, but it makes it easier to aim to do better this year. If I am healthy in any way, I can beat that. I set my goal small anyways. I want 1,000 miles this year. I would of course love to crush this, but there is a large amount of uncertainty still, so we will see. More than anything, I want to be back running with my friends. I miss my community. I miss talking to people, and oh my god do I miss long runs. I want a long run so bad. I just want to crush a 16 miler so bad. So here is to another year, and hopefully it will be better than the last!