Diabetes Blog – Happy-Medium.net

This past Sunday, I ran in my local neighborhood 5k event. This was probably my 12th or 13th time running this one, and today, I can say, unequivocally:

My back is killing me!

I should mention from the outset that I felt great Sunday morning. I was ready to go. Also, this has never happened before when I’ve run. Maybe my back would feel uncomfortable, sometimes when I ran, but that uncomfortable feeling would go away pretty quick.

Instead, this time my back started hurting toward the end of the first mile. I just powered through, because, again, this has never happened before. A little after mile 2, my back was hurting so much that I walked.

And I alternated walking and running the last mile-plus of the run.

This event helps to raise money for cancer research and treatment for people living with and surviving a cancer diagnosis. Toward the finish, I ran up to a group of 10 to 15 who were either cancer survivors, loved ones of those survivors, or people who trained the survivors to run a 5k.

I didn’t want to finish ahead of them, so I walked a bit so they could get ahead of me. Then I started running again, and before I knew it, I caught up to them again. So I walked a bit longer, then started running again, before catching up to the group one last time. Each time I walked, my back hurt more and more.

By the end, I was running nearly completely bent over. A question mark? No, I looked more like a right angle. Even though I managed a sprint toward the finish, I couldn’t get myself fully upright.

I usually take ten or fifteen minutes to recover after a run like this. Then, I get a little breakfast (this event has the best post-race spread), and we go home.

This time, I took about 40 minutes to recover. It was difficult to sit for long, difficult and so painful to stand, difficult to walk. I could not get comfortable.

In fact, I can’t get comfortable, even now. Things are a little less painful, but days later I’m still feeling pain and still feeling uncomfortable. I’ve given up on the ibuprofen and naproxen sodium. I couldn’t take what it was doing to my stomach, so I’m just gutting it out until I can feel better.

I guess that’s progress in a way, because I can get by without pain relievers now, and I don’t think I could have hoped to do that a couple of days ago. But I’m still hurting.

Believe it or not, my time was pretty good for someone my age… 35:05.8. I don’t really know how I did it.

So I’ve finished this one. I’ve mentioned that I’d like to keep doing this until I turn 60. That’s four more years.

In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter what my time is, or even that I finished. The most important thing is that I did my best, I hung in there, and the adversity I experienced didn’t deter me.

That is SO worth how my back feels right now.