Yellow means proceed with Caution.

Yesterday morning I got up and walked with my girlfriend. But as I defiantly ignored my injured foot's protests, I was looking at something else. Maybe some would call it the carrot. But today my perspective has changed.
Foot injury. I have plantar fasciatis. Pain in the bottom of your foot arch into the heel. I reinjured this foot by pushing myself to extreme limits without stretching properly. In January I started the biggest loser challenge and was on the dreaded treadmill and raised the incline up and was walking fast and the rest was history. I made it through the spring challenge.
While climbing Mount Monadnock with a friend who had plantar himself, I was told of how PTherapy had healed his feet. I could get orthodics and therapy and in a while I could run if I wanted to..... The real push to run was when Amy told me she wanted to do a 5k. Not that the 5k was what I wanted to do, but it was a goal that I would not be able to attain myself until i went to therapy.
So as I am feeling held back by therapy, Amy and Kate keep moving toward their dreams. Until both of them have gotten hurt at the same time. Amy is going for her PT consultation tomorrow. Kate has been told that she can walk/jog her marathon, but her injury will hold her back from running the entire marathon this fall. They are hard pills to swallow.
Seeing Kate's pain has put my injury into such perspective. I can proceed with caution and walk, until it hurts. Or I can do what I did yesterday until I feel the stinging. I layed on the table last night and the Therapist dug her boney fingers into my muscles in my foot and kneaded through the scar tissue. If you have never had it done, it is as painful as it sounds. I asked her, "What was the stinging?" Just my foot muscles tearing is what she told me. Was that last 1.5 miles worth it? NO!
Kate, thank you, because reading your blog again put this into perspective. I will listen to the caution light that i have. I will listen to the professionals and put my own foolish pride aside. I will wait to hear I can run and start the process slowly. As directed by the specialist that I am going to. If worst comes to worst and I have to walk the last leg of the tri, I will sign up for the next one and hope to run the last leg of it. Patience.
My carrot in my face yesterday was a man running at the other side of the park. Dressed in sweats and running into the sun. He looked beautiful. Not in a sexually attractive kind of way. Just the man in the morning running to meet the sun. That is the carrot that I want. I want to run into the sun and feel like the butterfly that opened it's wings for the first time to fly. Maybe I will get the ok in 2009 to do this, but if it means I have to wait till 2010, so be it. Patience. It will happen. And my world will not end if I myself find myself in Kates shoes being told that I can participate, but not a full boar run. I can be patient because I want to listen to my body and not hurt it.