It’s Race Week

About a month ago, I wrote about my upcoming half-marathon … Help, April 9th is Coming. Soon after that post, my running buddies and I did a 12-mile training run on the race course.

The weather was perfect and I felt great … hoping for the same on race day!

But I had an issue in my right shoulder/arm. In recent years, I’ve had nagging pain there and during that run, it intensified. I knew to be at my best, I had to do something about it before race day. I would like my pre-accident body back, but since that’s impossible, I plan to take good care of the one I now have. Our bodies are amazing and it given the right nutrition, care and rest, they can often heal themselves. But at times, they need help from another source.

So I went to see a new chiropractor that my massage therapist recommended. I wrote about discovering that My Head is not Screwed on Straight about two days after the first treatment. At the time, I didn’t know whether or not this treatment would be effective.

Now after a few treatments to straighten out my atlas (first vertebra), along with a few more runs … I am impressed and thankful for Dr. Marc Calicchio at Atlas Chiropractor. The tension/tightness/pain in my neck, right shoulder and arm are much better.

And there’s a pleasant bonus … I have less pain in my left thigh.

This surprised me, because though my calf looks worse than the thigh, I’ve had more pain in my thigh. That thigh had a long, deep cut into the bone and I assumed all that pain would be with me the rest of my life.

But as we know, the neck is connected to the back and the back is connected to the hip and the hip is connected to the leg … So my out-of-whack neck threw my back out of line, which caused strain on my already-weaken left thigh. With the deep injury and all the scaring, I’ll always have some pain there, but I’m thrilled to have less of it.

As I write this … there’s less than 100 hours till race time. During this time, I will check the weather a zillion times and wonder (again) what to wear. I will (try to) eat healthy. And my workouts look like this:

Sunday – did 5 miles

Monday – yoga, then adjustment by Dr. Marc Calicchio

Tuesday – walk (normally I would run, but it’s best to not do anything jarring for a day or two post-adjustment)

Wednesday – yoga and short run/walk

Thursday – walk, go see Dr. Marc Calicchio to see if my adjustment held, so that I’m good for Saturday.

Friday – rest day and pre-race massage :)

Saturday – Race Day!

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Since I want to rest my legs a lot this week, I will spend most of my time sitting … writing posts, finishing my book proposal and reading posts from others that inspire me. Like these Demesha, Jason, Jess and Randy.

I need all the inspiration I can get. Have you written any posts about a challenging thing you’ve done? I’d love to read it … leave a link in the comments.