Starting off the New Year Right

i started off the new year by doing a 15k run with friends in a new neighborhood. I first ran a 10k with my training friend - we had to dodge the sticky balls and cracks and raises in the sidewalk while my friend kept checking the map to be sure we stayed on the route. It went well and I felt great.

My friend was done after the 10k, but I wasn't. So I went back out to run a 5k add-on and I reversed the route hoping to meet up with the folks that were running a half marathon. I never did run into them but was having a great run. The weather was about 35 degrees and the the sun was shining. I was running through a very nice park, but had to keep checking the route map to be sure I made the correct turns. Since this was a neighborhood that was off my beaten path, I wanted to make sure I didn't get lost. So, I had a little less than a mile to go and looked down at the map (while running) to check for my next turn and then down I went. I'm not even sure how I tripped. I landed on my left hand - bending back the nail on my index finger. Do you know how bad that hurts? and my right knee - felt like I skinned it a little bit. My Garmin even popped off the quick release wrist band.

So I popped my Garmin back in place, brushed myself off and continued on with my run. Of course, I'm cursing myself for being such a klutz. Got back to the house with the rest of my friends and enjoyed a great BBQ lunch - the neighborhood smelled of the BBQ as I approached the house and I was very hungry. In fact, I completely forgot all about my fall until I got ready to leave and had to go down a step out of the house. My knee hurt REALLY bad, but I continued loading up my car and headed for home.

After I got home, I was mostly whiny about my finger and my hand. I checked my knee and it was pretty scraped up - but nothing major. Later on that evening my chest muscle hurt on the side where I caught myself with my hand. The cold I had been fighting off also descended on me. I also wondered if my chest hurt due to my cold - just not entirely sure.

As the days went by, my knee felt better, my finger and hand felt better and the pain in my chest went away. If not for the cold, I would've been feeling pretty normal. I went ahead and took Monday as a rest day from workouts to try to recover from my cold.

Tuesday is workout with the trainer day and she is tough. She is really tough with me because she knows I will try to complete the workout and challenge myself - which is exactly how we proceeded through the workout. I had told her about all my "excuses" - I try hard, but I also whine along the way...in case you didn't know that about me. She took me seriously and she told me to be a bit cautious and see how things went. I was doing all the leg work just fine and the arm work as well. I did my plank jumps with no pain. We moved on to the ball pass using the Swiss ball and when I reached over my head, the pain in my chest was unbelievable. I figured that I had just sparked a muscle spasm and continued on - big mistake.

I was going to swim and/or run later that evening but weenied out on that - the pain in my chest was just too intense. It was no better today AND to top it all off - I totally scraped a big hunk of skin off the top of my finger when I was carrying a basket of laundry. I managed to run into the corner of the wall with my hand - so once again, I am just a big mess.

So do I do these things to myself to give me "excuses" to skip out on my workouts punishing myself mentally because I'm not doing what I think I should? Am I just the biggest klutz on the planet? I'm hoping that this is not a trend for me for 2009 - maybe I'm just getting it all out of my system during the off-season and will be ready to rock n roll soon.

Fingers crossed....