Thursday, March 06, 2008

R.I.C.E

Horror of horrors, I injured my left knee. Online research has brought me to the conclusion that it is either Ileotibial band syndrome, or Patellofemoral pain syndrome. I'm tending to lean towards the latter (often referred to as "runners knee") and it's not great news. I'm finding that it is quite common among distance runners, and as the name implies, it hurts like heck! At this point I am wishing I could go back in time to Tuesday afternoon when I made the genius decision to try to just run through the small amount of discomfort I was feeling from the day before. Five miles later my leg just wouldn't allow me to take another step and I had to pathetically limp home. So now I am actively "RICE-ing", a useful acronym which stands for rest, ice, compression, elevate.



With only 10 weeks until the Fargo marathon, I'm trying to remain calm. It's funny how this running thing has become such a regular and beloved part of my life. But I am not too worried (there are still 10 weeks after all!) and the extra time off the road and on the couch has afforded very sweet times with the Lord. The next few months of my life are still quite a mystery, so although I would love to know what God is up to, it's comforting to just rest in Him and be happy in the thought that I just want to be... where He is. I need to be reminded often that more of my effort needs to be spent on who I am BECOMING than what I am DOING. This is difficult for me. But I am looking forward to more time with the knee up, iced and compressed to think on and pray for these things. I was further challenged just now by this quote:

"The art of praying, as we grow, is really the art of learning to waste time gracefully—to be simply the clay in the hands of the potter. This may sound easy—too easy to be true—but it is really the most difficult thing we ever learn to do.... This is the real reason why so few of us ever come, in this life, to the full experience of God’s love for us."
- Thomas H. Green
When the Well Runs Dry

As I sit in my favorite, slightly eccentric coffee shop downtown I suddenly feel delight at being alive. Cold outside or not I pulled out my favorite red and white polka-dot dress to wear today just because it is cheerful. Jack Johnson's "Better Together" is playing in the background and makes me laugh as I think of all the times my best pal, Emma, and I have sang it to each other... snapping our fingers as we did so. Ah, the little things:).

1 comment:

MeginAfrica said...

Heck! I had that too...same knee too! But RICE just isn't sounding right, isn't it SLICE, or maybe DICE?! :) Sorry Ginna, that's bunk! Make sure to do the Rest part of it though, cause I tried to push through mine and found out you could grow a pretty ugly ball of bone over that area if you don't take care of it. and that's just not nice