Soldiering on

I've been pathetic since scraping my hand on Sunday. Monday, all day, was agony - I left it open to the air, and as it crusted up and dried out, every time I moved my hand it cracked and painful weeping fissues formed. Every time I tried to pick something up, it hurt. I left the car at home, walked to work, and basically felt sorry for myself all day. I met my friend Tor after work for a coffee, and that helped take my mind off it for a wee while, but by the time I was home again, and faced with trying to wash some dishes (proved extremely difficult) and load the washing machine with laundry, etc - I just felt helpless and frustrated. It was a 'rest day', for obvious reasons.

On Tuesday, I knew I needed to do 'some' exercise, but having slept with the wound dressed overnight to avoid fluff from bedclothes getting in, in the morning it was all sticky and sore as the air hit it, and I felt very sorry for myself. During breakfast I tried to pack my gym bag for after work, and it seemed to take forever - and then I caught the strap of the bag against the open wound, and as I gasped out in pain I couldn't help but forcefully, petulantly, kick the gym back across the kitchen floor. Oooops! *laughs* I'm not a very patient patient... As the day went on, at work, I started to feel even more sorry for myself. I was finding basic things quite tough, like holding a mug under the hot water urn and flicking the tap to fill the mug with boiling water - when an injury affects my ability to have a cuppa, things are serious... ;) Ah, I joke, but I was getting down about the fact that I live alone, and when there's a minor problem, there's nobody there to help me out, or even just give me a cuddle and tell me it will be alright. So I turned to facebook, where my adorable friends all told me to pull myself together, it was just a scrape, and why was I still going on about it?!

I went to the gym after work, asking a random lady in the changing room for help fastening me into my sports bra, haha, and did a basic treadmill session of a few kms running with the speed slowly increasing every 30 seconds. So after a warm-up incline walk, I ran 2kms in 16 minutes, followed by stretches, sit-ups, then another 2km run with increasing speed every 30 secs exactly as before. It was mentally a struggle to get through, and at the end of the second set, I contemplated a third, but I just couldn't face it, plus it was 8:30pm and I'd not eaten since lunchtime, so I headed home. So I guess I ran 4km in 32 mins, which obviously isn't omg-impressive, but it was great training for me to stick rigidly to upping the speed a tiny bit every 30 seconds, so I'm happy enough.

Today, Wednesday, I met with my personal trainer before work. The healing scrape on my hand is no longer hurting just by itself, but obviously as it's still healing it's too sore to do things like gripping weights or cable handles, or put my weight on for things like push-ups, so he devised a quick routine which wouldn't involve my hand, focussing on my core. Things like plank and side-planks, etc. - It wasn't a massively complex session, but he could tell early on that my head was all over the place at the moment, so after a bit of a chat, and one hesitant, broken set of all of the exercises, he told me to slowly walk in a full circle around the gym floor, focussing on coming back and going once again though the full set properly on my return. Get my head in the game. I walked, cleared my mind, and pictured myself carrying out the moves in question, and returned a bit more focussed and ready to go. This was a nice wee mind-trick, and one I shall remember for the future.

Tonight I think I'm going for a run with Helen. It will no doubt be much healthier (mentally) than going home to the empty flat again - and it means a nice short day at work, which is always good mid-week. x