Monday, October 13, 2014

Monday's major and minor news...

One of the most important lessons I've learnt throughout my running career (all 16 months of it) is to pay attention to pain. Even minor pain is an indication that something isn't quite right. I've also become more aware of the difference between muscle soreness (a sign that you have trained hard) and pain (which means something is wrong). I have shoulder PAIN. It started last week Thursday when I was doing my Captains Chair routine at the gym and I aggravated it yesterday during my long run. Normally I would take a few anti-inflammatory meds, ice it, and call it a day because I usually have a pretty high tolerance for pain. And with a background in ER and Trauma nursing my view has always been "if it's not falling off then it's fine"...
(I'm kidding...I'm not that bad)

But, after having to cancel and defer different races and after having to spend months (and way too much money) in physical therapy I decided to be more proactive and have this issue with my shoulders addressed early. So I made an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon (Dr. T) and (thanks to a last minute cancellation) I was able to see him today.

They took X-rays of my right shoulder (since my right shoulder hurts more than my left) and those were negative for fractures (thankfully). The official diagnosis, after a lot of range of motion and muscle strength exams, was bilateral rotator cuff tendonitis...

So I'm back on anti inflammatory meds and I got a prescription for steroids (but I'm only going to take it if the Naproxen regimen doesn't work). I was also told to follow up if I'm not better in 10 days, but I really hope this is a fleeting issue. So the good news is there doesn't seem to be any major damage and Dr T said that I am cleared to run (he is a runner himself so he totally gets the obsession).

I'm going to stay away from activities that aggravate my shoulders and put unnecessary pressure on the shoulder joint (there goes any thoughts of a baseball pitching career....don't worry I didn't really have any plans for that) and just take it easy with my shoulders for the next few weeks...

Ok so now that I got the major news out of the way I'll share the minor stuff...

In my effort to push myself to focus more on swimming as my staple "go to" cross training workout I decided to sign up for Swim Miami 2015 (go big or go home right?). I can already swim a mile in one go so I figured the 5K was the obvious choice...
I'm trying to convince other people to do it with me. Only my sister-in-law Gail seemed excited about it so hopefully she will register soon. Who else wants to SwimMiami?!

I'm going to get my code to register for the Palm Beach Half Marathon next week (I have to pay through my running group on Sunday) and once I'm registered I will be all set for the Florida Storm Series. I'm getting more and more excited about it because I have been meeting so many people that are running the series. They are probably all going to pass me on the course but that's ok...

Is anyone planning on doing all five of the Florida Storm Series events? Or has anyone done them all in the past? (I'm planning for 4 out of 5 this year)

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