You never know a good thing... ...until you lose it!

Yes, that line from Dream Warriors (and others, I assume) pretty much sums it up for me now. Or "be aware what you wish for as it may come true..." could also work. On my last post, if I recall correctly, I was in pain with my right foot, and wished it would go away. Well, on last week's Monday it did go away, but it also took something with it, something I'd like to get back ASAP :). But lets go back to that Monday (November 12th) for a while, I'll shed some light on the events then and afterwards.
So, early at that mentioned Monday morning I had some pain in my right foot, again, but that was nothing unusual anymore, so I went to kiss my wife & children goodbye (they were all asleep still) to leave to work. As I leaned down to say bye for the day to my daughter, something happened in the right hip, and the pain intenisfied quite much. So much that I had quite a diffulties to put on my shoes and walk to the car after that. Sitting in the car for the 1 h commute was truly agonizing, and when I got to the parking-lot, I had to take a few minutes time-out to actually get up from the car. At that point, finally, I decided that I'd get an appontment with the doctor at the office to see if there's anything that can be done on the leg. So, after limping the distance to my desk, I called and got the appointment.
So, when the time came, I got to the doctor's office, and he examined my back and the leg. I had not lost any power from the leg, but I was not able to bend the leg more than 30 degrees from my back-line, so the doctor sent me home with an order to get my hip x-rayed to find out if it actually has something to do with the spinal discs, or if its some piriformis -issues.
When exiting the doctor's office, the leg had decided to explode with pain. Maybe the examination caused it, or just the terrible chair I sat in at the office, but the pain had got even worse. Tears in my eyes I decided not to take the elevator but to walk the stairs (Don't ask me why, I was not apparently thinking straight at that point...). Well, walking the stairs was a challenge that I did not need at that point, but I walked them anyway. I was so concentrated not to cause any more pain to the right leg that I did not pay attention to the left one. So I stumbled, had to put all my weight onto the right leg, and nearly cried out loud from the pain.
I'm not sure how long I just stood there trembling, unable to move, but at some point I realised I had started slowly walking again. The highest peak of the pain had gone, and I could actually walk to my desk, grab my things, walk to the car and drive home. The driving was a bit weird, because the pain that I had when I came to work had kind of disappeared after the stumble in the stairs.
As I had had pretty much enough of everything for the Monday, I decided to get the x-rays on Tuesday and try to rest for the rest of that day. Lying down I noticed that I had lost the surface feeling of most of my right calf, part of the right back-thigh and part of the buttock. I did not pay attention to those things too much at that point however, I was just glad that the pain had pretty much gone away...
On Tuesday morning I noticed that I was not able to use the right foot as usual. The pain had gone, but apparently it also meant that the connection to the muscles (the biggest calf-muscle, part of the back-thigh and part of the buttock) was non-existent. I could walk (well, limp actually), but I couldn't tip-toe with the right foot. And I couldn't put my weight on the right foot, as the strongest part of the calf was unavailable.
Fast-forward from Tuesday Nov. 13th to today, the situation is pretty much the same. This monday I went back to the doctor's and with the x-ray -diagnosis, he put me on the urgent-queue to an orthopedist. And sent me back home for two weeks.
So, here I am now, awaiting for the call from the orthopedist, and trying to figure out ways to help my body heal and not break from any other parts of it. Training has succumbed to slow short morning walks. And considerations of maybe going for a swim at some point.
As a summary, I wished I'd get rid of the pain, which I did, but got also rid of some of the services from my right foot. And I think I would have needed those in the future!
Apparently this blog has presently more information on my short medical history than my training. I need to change that, so as soon as I get some professional help and guidance on how to make my body heal, I'll treat those guides as training plans and work from there. I'm still adamant that I'll be in Norway in the August of 2014!! :D

Two weeks passed, an overhaul decided

So it's been two weeks since my last post. For me, those two weeks have mostly meant pretty consistent...
...pain. In my right foot. In my previous post I mentioned my training regimen had already resulted to something, and that that something was a lower-back pain that nested in my right buttock, but radiated (and still radiates) to the whole leg, especially outer side of my right calf. Presumably this is some version of the spinal disc herniation.
That pain is something that I've never ever before experienced. Its most intense when I stand up after a longer period of sitting, especially in the car, and it just simply stops me doing anything and everything until it slowly levels down. And believe me, having this for almost three weeks now has had me thinking different options, e.g. putting the leg on e-bay for sale or to be replaced by a wooden stick, or anything that would just provide a way out of the situation. I actually already contacted some medical help too, and got instructions to take a inflammatory/pain -medication daily for a week or two and see if the pain goes away (apparently this all is caused by a septic (inflamed?) muscle pressing on the main-nerve for the foot, so the inflammation needs to be healed before a real recovery can start).
But anyway, as I've gotten so scared of this situation A) continuing and/or B) returning at some point in the future, I've not trained at all for the past two weeks. Unless some walking with the family can be seen as training, and for me, that is not. Fun it is, but not training.
I've also started to wonder if I actually should really listen to this body of mine... I recall one situation like this from my earlier years, where a change of shoes and running style caused an infection on both of my calves (shin splints), so I was unable to run downhill at all. Naturally, this meant that at some point I just decided to stop running for a while. After finally accepting the situation then, I decided to engage a stretching routine to be done daily, and actually carried that out for several weeks. The results of that are present even now, as previously I was not able to touch the floor with my hands when standing with straight legs, but now I can tap my palms to the floor if I want to. But that change in the approach to training required quite a leap mentally, especially as at that point when I had only trained for marathons (=running) and nothing else...
So maybe I should actually use this downtime to something useful? Last time I mentioned not having a plan, and that bothering me to some extent. Now I need to have a plan, but totally different from the one I thought I'd have. I need to plan how to gradually level up my fitness even if I'm unable to run (at least for longer distances), and how to avoid this present situation at all costs...
The more irritated I got about this situation, the more it actually made me think. For instance, I have nearly one yard of books on my shelf dedicated only to the "mastery of endurance". Those include guides for planning your season, planning your training in all the three disciplines, books on nutrition for endurance athletes, Yoga for athletes, strength training etc. Why the hell won't I just sit down and not think of what I can't do, but think of what I can, and start from that?
So, as it seems that an extra-strong core will be a main factor in NOT getting this pain back again, I opened the Triathlete's guide to strength training and Sage Roundtree's "the Athlete's guide to Yoga". I created myself a core-routine for the next three weeks, and after that, I'll see if I need to add something to the routine (I was not able to carry out all the moves, so I have the possibility to update when I get my fitness back :)).
And, I've decided to start swim training again next week, probably two morning sessions per week at first and we'll see how the things develop from there. And finally, I'll follow the advice of M. Fitzgerald' to "say yes to the good stuff", in other word's, I'll gradually start to change my nutrition habits to reflect my caloric needs daily and stop eating like I was training several times a day as I really am not.
So I guess I'm now on the process of getting over a speed-bump. It took me a while, and I apparently needed some butt-kicking before that, but it's happening now... Let's see if after next week I actually have something good also happening training-wise and not just these negative thingies :D