Don't Call It a Comeback

There is not a single person on God's green earth who is more obnoxious about their rehab than me, I am utterly convinced.  I love doing rehab, and I am not afraid to make sure that everyone around me knows that, whether they want to or not.  My trainer, Sonia, is an angel sent directly to the Utah State training room from the gods of injury and recovery.  She knows I'm a bit of a head case and exercise makes me into much less of a goblin full of spite, and she is a fountain of rehab knowledge, so she has been making my rehab progression so enjoyable.  Last week, she texted me to inform me that she had some ideas to make my exercises harder, and boy did she come through.  Not gonna lie to you guys, I am getting pretty jacked.  #BodyBySonia  The other day, I caught myself checking out my own legs while doing single-leg squats, and I have asked Sonia and Tav roughly seventy-three times in the last week if my butt looks like it has gotten bigger.  I told Sonia that my comeback goal is to be able to be described using the words "Stoopid thicc".  Additionally, I made up my own comeback/rehab progression theme song.  Like I said, obnoxious.  But also extremely happy and excited to be coming back stronger, which hopefully balances things out.

Huge exciting announcement (drumroll please)...I'm running again!  As of this week, I am back on the underwater treadmill.  Thus far, I have had two sessions lasting twenty and thirty minutes with my boo, and the reunion has gone so well.  It's not always easy to work things out after a breakup-there are a lot of hurt feelings and emotions-but running and I really took some time for self-discovery before talking things through again, and we're both willing to ease back into our relationship slowly and make it more stable and healthy.  Those fifty minutes spent on the underwater treadmill held so much pure love for the simple joy of just running.  To run again has been bliss.  Obviously I haven't been permitted to run any record-shattering times, but the motion of running at all is a delight.  Even more exciting is the news that Sonia is planning on allowing me to run on dry land (or I guess technically dry treadmill) on the twenty-eighth.  Under two short weeks!  It feels like I have been floating since I got to start treadmill running again and discovered that I would be running regularly again before March.  I feel like the female lead in a young adult novel, but instead of a complicated, emotionally unavailable poet with dreamy eyes and a leather jacket making me feel this way, it's running.  ILY so much, bb.

Also, as we already knew, the sports psychologist that I work with is a worker of miracles.  This week, we did an exercise that had me charting three major trials and three major triumphs in my life on a sort of graph and connecting those points to illustrate the point that every major trial is eventually turned around and often lead to a greater triumph.  It was a wonderful reminder that this injury will just help me to appreciate the next good thing to happen with my running all the more, and to value the running that I get to do daily rather than taking it for granted.  I am extremely eager to get back into workouts and really appreciate the wonderful exhaustion that comes with them, but I'm also willing to wait until my body is ready for that.  Shoutout to my L5 vertebrae for teaching me about patience, listening to my body, loving running in its purest form, and valuing every little ache, pain, and sore muscle that come with difficult workouts and progression.  Sorry I was so bitter towards you in the beginning of this little baby journey.  You were right, and I was less right.