Thursday was my glorious return to softball! When I say “glorious”, I mean that it was wonderful to play again, not that I played wonderfully. Well, I wasn’t too bad, actually, but there’s always room for improvement!

I pitched the entire game. It’s a lot of pressure, but I enjoy it. I did pretty well, too. Again, it could have been better, but I only walked a few people, I struck a few people out, and I did a decent job of fielding. (Though there are two balls that I really wish I had caught: One a line drive to my head (eek!) and two, a piddly pop fly that came down between me and the short stop. I could have had them both if I was a little quicker. Next time.)

Here’s the thing: All day yesterday and today, I’ve been suffering from what seems to be a pulled muscle in my left buttock that I believe is the result of the repetitive pitching motion. It’s incredibly painful. Incredibly.

Simply walking around my house makes me cringe, but I still had to do my run yesterday: 5 miles. I went out before dinner with the best of intentions.

And it hurt like hell.

I thought: Just keep going and eventually it will go away.

It didn’t.

I thought: How upset will you be with yourself if you stop halfway through?

A lot.

But I stopped halfway through anyway. I didn’t just stop as in walking. I stopped as in doing one loop instead of two and immediately going home. It was the first time ever that I did this, and I still feel miserable about it.

I know why I did it, and I know that it was probably the right decision: There’s no reason to push too hard during a training run and risk worsening an injury. But that doesn’t change how I feel.

Worst of all, I’m still in pain, and tomorrow I’m supposed to do 11 miles – my last long run before next Sunday’s half marathon.

Did you hear that?! The half marathon is one week away and I’m nursing a pulled muscle in my butt!

Geez louise.

I’m going to try a few tips my massage-ynist mother gave me: Sit in a hot bath for 10-15 minutes, rub the affected area, and treat with biofreeze. Hopefully that does the trick!

In case it doesn’t, does anyone have any other suggestions?

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 24th, 2010 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Half Marathon, Softball, Trials and Tribulations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.