132 days, but who's counting?

This morning I lounged in the bed where I'm house-sitting, reveling in the fact that I didn't need to rush home to participate in my own home life (Neil and Ginger are in Georgia this week) and enjoying the blackout curtains in this Belle Meade master bedroom.

After deciding to be conscious, I grabbed my phone off the bedside table and started reading my Twitter feed. When I got all caught up I started exploring the features of the iPhone app. There's an option to click and see a list of tweets that others have retweeted, so I checked it out. There weren't many -- I'm clearly not a thought leader on Twitter or anything -- and this stuck out to me.

Exactly 132 days ago, I ran a 10K. And for exactly 132 days, I've been living with pain in my right side.

After that race, which was such a personal milestone for me, my muscles were really tight. I'd never run that far before, and it felt like no amount of stretching would loosen me up. Well, maybe I could have stood to stretch more. It's hard to say at this point. The race was in Atlanta, so after a minimal amount of stretching at the finish line, we snacked on free goodies at Atlantic Station and then drove back to my parents' house, where I mostly sat around and read a magazine while eating cold pizza and basking in my accomplishment. At some point I went upstairs to get something, and as I descended the stairs I felt a really tight muscle in my right knee do something it's not supposed to do. I won't say it snapped, but it did make a sort of snapping noise, and I immediately felt an ache radiate up and down my right leg. We had to get on the road back to Nashville, so I was seated for the next four hours or so. I'm sure this only made things worse.

The achy feeling ebbed; it came out in full force from my knee to my ankle when I tried jogging. It radiated around my hip when I sat in long meetings. It crept its way down my leg when I lounged on the couch or stretched out in bed at night. After six weeks or so I decided to bring it up to my doctor, and she gave me an x-ray (it felt kinda like a pity x-ray) and referred me to a physical therapist.

I've been seeing a physical therapist since the end of April, and it has helped. I leave my appointments feeling like I'm improving, and like I can easily fix my IT band (which I'm told is what I've actually injured) with glute and core exercises and with regular sessions on my trusty foam roller.

But I've somehow became so out of touch with my body that I can't tell if I'm engaging my glutes or my back muscles, so the prescribed exercises (and those I'm doing with the personal trainer I've seen for the past two and a half years) have done more harm than good. Now I find myself nursing a low back injury that keeps me from being able to sit, stand or lie down comfortably, and the pain still radiates around my right side and down my leg quite regularly.

In fact this morning, while I dozed in the most comfortable bed ever, I even felt the pain in my dreams.

132 days is too long to feel this way. I haven't run (other than a mile here and there), and I've been lazy about my strength training workouts because I now associate them with pain, and it HURTS TO SIT AND WATCH TV. That's a #firstworldproblem if I ever heard one, but it's still upsetting.

So here's my plan. I will take a hiatus from my trainer (with the hope that we can reunite when my body feels more up to it), and I will use that money (plus the money I'll save by quitting the Y, which I I haven't used since January) to fund some yoga classes. I know, I know. I decided to let go of the notion that I like doing yoga, but since I can't do the stress reducing things of yore (like running or lifting weights), and since I've found I actually like the challenge of being still and breathing through stretches, I think it's a fine idea for me to give it a shot.

So tomorrow's the day. I'm attending a thing called Aerial Yoga at a studio near my house. They also do Hatha Yoga, which seems like just the ticket, since it's all about holding poses for a long time. I need to move slowly and purposefully.

Now that's in in writing I feel more accountable, so here I go. I'm emailing my trainer now (it's not you, it's me), and I'm off to find my inner yogi.