Lost: Motivation. Please return if found.

The longer this injury goes on the harder it is to motivate myself to get on with doing what little training I can do.

Every weekend I'm seeing races come and go. I'm seeing other runners progress and I'm feeling myself falling further and further behind. I do try to remain positive, and I can maintain a positive rhetoric and say all the things I know I should be saying, but the truth is that it frigging hurts and it sucks and I'm sick of it.

When the alarm goes off in the mornings, these days there is a great temptation to roll over and go back to sleep rather than get up and ride or go for a pointless (i.e. no specific goal) run. On Friday my massage therapist asked me how my body was feeling in general and I said I didn't know - it doesn't feel like my body. I feel unfit. I feel slow. I feel out of condition. Actually, I AM unfit, I AM slow and I AM out of condition.

There has been a great deal of swearing going on in my house as I try and deal with the frustration I'm feeling. Not only is this injury a physical struggle, it's also taking a pretty big mental toll on me. And unlike when I'm dealing with other things that stress me out, I can't go out and run to relax because the running (or lack thereof) is the cause of it.

I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't all doom and gloom. I know I am improving, it's just that the rate of that improvement is far too slow for me and my goals for this year. With Canberra Marathon off the cards in April it looks like my first chance at a marathon won't be until the end of July this year. That's half the year gone without trying to crack the 2:50 mark.

Of course, I'm also looking at the shorter races I'm missing. I really wanted to give SMH Half a good go this year, but I'm beginning to doubt I'll be in shape for it. If (when) my hamstrings ever come right it's going to be such a tough job getting back into race condition. At least when I started training with Sean last year  I had a strong endurance base and all I was really trying to develop was my speed. Now I'm starting from scratch on both counts. Insert swear word here please. Make it a bad one. 

Forgive this uninspiring post. I do try to remain upbeat and embrace all the positives in my recovery but sometimes a girl's gotta cry a little and a good blog's all about honesty, right? I love to run. I love the sense of achievement it brings when all the hard work comes together. I'm really, really missing that right now. I miss the camaraderie too. It probably sounds cliched but it's true - I love running and racing with other like-minded people. Especially at races like SMC where everyone cheers everyone else along.

Finally, some basic housekeeping:
I have my second lot of PRP injections on Wednesday after work. A week later I'll go and see Brent (physio) and we're going to do a whole lot of strength testing to see how things are progressing.

I used my Garmin for the first time in months yesterday. I've been avoiding it because I knew the figures would just depress me. I ran for 60 minutes at 4:40 pace. Better than nothing I guess and at least I can now start tracking my progress.