I rediscovered this year how good I feel running, especially when I begin my day with it. I’ve come to depend on that shot of endorphins in the morning and have loved feeling strong. Here’s the downside though, my obsessive personality pushes me towards a guilt storm when I need to take a break.
And my body wants me to take a break. After the 10 mile race on Sunday, I played volleyball that night and continued with my 4-mile morning routine the next day. After my run on Wednesday, my knee started to hurt. Now, I had knee problems in college and have kept an eye on some resurfacing pain as I upped my mileage but this is the other freaking knee.
I took yesterday and today off and it looks like I’ll at least have to rest it through the weekend. I started icing today and got a compression sleeve to help. It’s not really bad, but it hurts when I move normally which tells me I should not push it. When this happened years ago it got to the point where I could barely walk and I didn’t handle the recovery or loss of running well.
So I’m reminding myself to be gentle and take care of my body. That exercise is only truly good for you if you can afford to take time off from it and not lose your damn mind. This weekend I’ll stay horizontal when I can, ice, read, write, and nurse a little bit of an oncoming cold (that hopefully, I can sleep off tonight).
It’s okay to slow down. It’s okay to rest.
With Love,
Natalie
❤️❤️❤️