Today, my surgeon told me that I am cleared for all aerobic activity. I was tempted to ask him if this meant if I could run the LA marathon still but my better judgement knew that it wouldn’t be smart because of two reasons:
- Who knows what 26.2 miles would do to my mending colon
- I hadn’t run in nearly 1.5 weeks, severely throwing me off my game
My surgery has taught me one extremely important lesson: Listen to your body. Before, I would push myself to exhaustion. My first blog post I wrote about injury. I had been suffering with runners knee and my IT band on my right side was so tight that I felt like my hamstring was going to separate from my glute, however, I ran through the pain. Looking back, I could have afforded to avoid these injuries altogether by giving myself a rest day each week. I knew recovery was important but I love working out. I’m a gym and yoga fanatic. Injury isn’t worth it though. I know that now. People say everything happens for a reason. I’m a firm believer in that phrase too. Did I need to go through surgery in order to listen to my body? Maybe.
I started going back to the gym on Monday, 3/18, 10 days after surgery. Before you call me crazy and/or stupid for going back to the gym that fast, hear me out. The first day, all I did was lift 2 pound weights, walk on the treadmill, and die on the stair master (that kicked my ass). I need daily exercise to be happy. Endorphins are so important to me because of my past (this will be its own blog post in the future). For the rest of the week, I have kept the same routine of walking on the treadmill, light weights and the stair master. But today, I ran for the first time and let me tell you…it was GLORIOUS! I did an hour interval work out outlined below:
5 min warm-up
10 min easy jog
5 min walk on an 8% incline x3
10 min tempo jog x3
Cool Down
I finished the work out with the largest smile on my face and screamed, “I’M BACK!” in my head. I wanted to share my accomplishment with everyone in the room. But I didn’t, don’t worry. Although I know it will still be a couple weeks before I’m back to what I was before surgery, I’m ecstatic that I’m now on the path. I will be running the Rock n’ Roll San Diego Marathon in June and I will be better and faster than I was before my surgery. Just wait and see.
Run, Yoga, Repeat. 