Don't touch the feet.

I've been sidelined for several days. It has been a real struggle. The last day I ran (before today) was the 19th. I'll give you a recap of how I became injured.

Last Sunday after my run, I was messing around with my wife. Turns out, she does not like being tickled. To avoid my tickling ambush, she flailed and accidently kicked me in the chest. It hurt quite a bit but I didn't think anything of it. Monday rolls around and the weather was awful so I ran on the dreadmill (see post). Nothing was wrong and nothing hurt.

Tuesday the 19th. I'm not sure what happened. I was running with Ben and about a mile into the run I realized my chest was hurting. It was pretty chilly and Ben thought it might have been the cold. We finished the run (6.2 miles that I didn't write about) and I was gasping for air. My chest felt like someone took a bat to it. It hurt to walk, breath, sit/stand, and pretty much do anything. I was pretty nervous but there was no swelling or bruising. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well that night.

I obviously knew that I had to take a few days off. Wednesday (the 20th) I went to Immediate Care and got my chest checked out. I was still in significant pain. Luckily they had a X-Ray machine and I found out I did not have a cracked rib. Huge sigh of relief. The doctor believes that I have torn or pulled some muscles/cartilage in the chest. His prescription: rest and extra strength Ibuprofen. The medicine has significantly reduced the pain.

I've been itching to run. Finally my chest wasn't hurting when I took a deep breath anymore so I decided to give running a chance today. Well, the weather was a balmy 24 degrees with a stiff wind out of the west. Brrrrr.

Thankfully Selke was willing to run with me today; I doubt I would have made it too far because of the cold. There are two things I hate about running: too hot and too cold weather conditions. Ugh. Since Selke's foot is really bothering him we ran on some snow covered trails. Running in the snow is always fun as long as it's less than a few inches. Most of the mud and puddles were frozen, except the one I stepped in (of course). Now I only wanted to test out my chest to see if I could take some deep breathes. Therefore, we only did a 4 miler. Throughout the run I was feeling pretty good but I could still feel a little pain. Nothing too serious.

We got back to my car and my chest is a little sore. This is pretty good news. I was pretty worried that I would have to withdraw from the Race with Grace on Thursday morning. I will just take it pretty easy the next couple of days and see what Thursday brings.

I'm really glad that I was able to run today. 4 days of rest is definitely enough. This injury is probably a blessing in disguise. Marathon training begins in exactly 1 week! Let's go!