Tuesday, October 6, 2009

How soon we forget...or want to...

Well, last week I talked about how my right foot was ailing. I took the week off, walked wherever I needed to go (on average, I got about 3 miles a day) and still worked out. The foot would ache every now and again, but it was not too bad. Yesterday, it felt pretty good. So I said to myself, "Self, let's try to get 3 miles on in a run after the arm work out (you know, do the curls to get the girls)". So after feeding my ego, I decided to rush in with abandon to getting on 3 miles. I thought, shoot, I've been running 22 miles a week, so this should be easy. The first mile went by at 8:14 and I'm thinking "I'm back! Woohoo!". Then at a mile and a quarter, a shooting pain comes from just ahead of my heel and runs right up the Achille's tendon and right then, the 3 mile run was over. Being open-minded, I decided I still needed to get my miles on so I went to one of the elliptical machines and kept going. I got 2 more miles at an average of 9:20 and my foot did not hurt at all. With my long history of medical training, ("I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV"), I came to the conclusion that the issue is not a soft tissue injury; I probably have a stress fracture in my foot and will have to do the next couple of months of training on the elliptical machine since the foot cannot take the striking the track or pavement. It's a good thing the elliptical machines have TV's and MP3's with headphone jacks. Come February, I'll get an X-ray to see if I can still compete.

Why am I talking about this? Well, it was symptomatic of my mindset this week. I figured that if I got a little positive feedback, I could forget all about real issues that were still needing to be addressed. Like my foot, I took a little positive feedback I was getting in trying to re-build a relationship and probably pushed too far too fast without first dealing with the issues that still needed to be addressed due to a "path of destruction" that I had left in my wake over the past few years. I made some pretty good progress when our conversation came to re-living the mistakes I made. I listened, took responsibility for my failures and offered to atone and assist in what ever way I could to help build a new foundation for a relationship. The old me would have said "That stuff is in the past! I've changed! Trust me, love me now!" Now, I honestly express my feelings (probably went too fast in expressing them, but it was the first time we talked in a month), looked to her to lead the conversation (the old me would have bossed things around) and I really, truly empathized with her situation. Like my training, I will be dealing with this relationship by accepting current conditions while still working to move things forward. Like not being able to run 3 miles like a gazelle but still getting the miles in a little differently, I won't be running (metaphorically) into open arms (or legs (ha ha)), but I think we made steps toward sharing a cup of coffee or meeting for breakfast (eggs benedict this week, ykw).

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