One step forward...and then another

Yeah, you thought it was going to be '...and two steps back.' But, it's not. I took Monday off as my rest day. It wasn't supposed to work that way, but it did. Tuesday I woke up and did my 4.5 mile run. On the way out I was feeling pretty good, my muscles weren't too tight from the race, like I said - good. I have to cross over some railroad tracks on my route, usually not a big deal, however today as I was ON the tracks the lights started flashing, bells ringing and the cross arms started coming down...fast! Holy Sh*t! As slow as I am I ducked and crunched my neck and made it out on the other side as my only options were ducking and going under or going off into a ditch on the side of the road.

Whew! Close one that was. I kept on my merry little way down my route and on the way back the arms were down again...this lead me to believe that the RR x-ing is jacked up and that there was no train earlier.

6-8 hours later my neck starts hurting, bad hurting, but I didn't think too much of it...until I couldn't sleep that night. When I woke up in the morning (at 4:30am) I asked Trainer to leave me the number of his Dr. It hurt to breathe, raise my arms, move my head...well, it hurt to move. I went to work and looked up the Dr, they didn't open until 11:30 on Wednesday, just my luck, but I made it through lunch and they got me in late that afternoon. (bless them)

The Dr. said I had a compression injury, he said it was as if someone squished my head into my shoulders with a violent impact. I was thinking, 'Well, I did get tossed around in the water at the tri,' but really that was nothing too severe and for the pain to be so delayed? I didn't even think about the RR incident, but that is probably what happened. Just moved wrong and it ended up compressing two nerves, one in my neck and one in my back. He worked on me, manipulated the tissue around the nerves and sent me on my way.

Bottom line - I need to work on my posture doing just about everything: sitting, driving, cooking, reading...bah! The really jacked up thing? I am a MUSIC MAJOR, we've been taught to sit up straight with our shoulders back our WHOLE lives! I think the slouchy thing is a rebellious thing. Haha, I wish. It's just bad habit upon bad habit picked up since I graduated ASU in 1995...gawd I'm old.

Anyway, this weeks training has kind of sucked, I did manage to make it to 2 swim practices (I only made it through 30 min, but better than nothing), a strength workout and tomorrow I'm attempting the Real Ale Ride. The Dr cleared me to ride today, although he added that I will probably regret it b/c it's going to hurt. The good thing...I have a massage scheduled for the afternoon and then pizza with friends in the evening!

So, we just keep taking those steps forward, one foot in front of the other. The finish line is out there somewhere.