Surprises always seem to sneak up on me on Sundays.
Like water all over the kitchen floor, the water I thought was splatter from plunging a slow drain but was instead pouring out from a pipe under the sink that had finally given way to its corrosion.
Depending on which end of your particular brand of calendar on which the Lord’s Day rests, it’s either the end of one long, trying week in which your kitchen sink might have experienced a catastrophic failure but is fixable, or just the beginning, where one fix leads to another problem that will require a professional.
This is just what my husband and I are milling over in our minds as we slip through the sliding glass doors of a local Big Box hardware store headed for the plumbing section.
At this time I noticed something else that seemed strange.
“Why am I limping,” I asked myself aloud as we raced each other to Aisle 33.
“I-dunno.” my husband answered somewhat cheekily. “Maybe it has something to do with one or all of the eleven miles you ran earlier?”
Not that I had ruled such a thing out, but I still found it odd that I hadn’t noticed the pain until I tried to even out my stride as we passed the wall of cleaning products just after the entrance. In doing so, I unwittingly called “Center Arch … Left Foot!” to full attention.
Doh!
Of course! My Summer training for an early Fall marathon had been fairly uneventful. But, I felt pretty good. I ran. I rested. I ran some more. I gradually built up to longer and longer distances. I kept myself hydrated. I fueled. I did hills.
Sure, I did only enough speed work to check a box that no one would ever look over or grade.
Still, I am confident that I have wrestled myself away from being of two minds when it comes to such preparation: The one in which I pledge to ease in, increase my mileage only incrementally, and listen to the aches and pains my body registers and adjust accordingly until race day; against the one who says “SURE! LET’S DO IT” the instant a running buddy merely suggests adding on an extra mile or three to the route.
I may have let that last one lapse on the previous Saturday.
We can’t know definitively which run will go off the rails when so many runs go according to schedule.
I won’t worry. Can’t worry. It is whatever it is, after all.
A strained muscle most likely.
Mild even, or so my fairly prolific visits to the SELF-DOT-CALM School of Medicine would proclaim.
I will follow the conservative methods of treatment most self-diagnostics recommend: Rest, Analgesics, Ice, and mild Stretching.
Mind you, I am starting my rehabilitation just as my husband locates the 1½ inch pipe fittings that he silently worried had been erroneously inventoried on the store’s website stock ticker and would throw all hope, including a fix for the kitchen sink, into next week or possibly never.
Not that he bats an eye at such antics.
“Honestly, I get it. I don’t think I can face a professional after getting my certification from the YouTube Guild of Home Repair.”
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