Why I’m happy I was injured! And an announcement.

In blogging about 2010 via reverb#10 prompts, I thought I’d give a follow up post to what repetitive injury taught me this year and how I am so damn happy that I had issues with my body during training.

Holy crap. Did she just say she was happy that she got injured? Yes. Having iliotibial band issues wasn’t necessary debilitating, but it changed how I felt and viewed healthy living, proper training, running in general, and eventually what the next steps in my life are.

Let me summarize the first 6 months of 2010 in 5 sentences. The first time I developed pain I started this blog in January. I built mileage back up. I ran a bunch of events. I found pain again.  I stopped running.

Yeah. I see what I did incorrectly. Too much. Too soon. With very little strengthening. My mistake is very, very common in new runners. I don’t want to repeat this cycle again.  I need to be smart and how do I become smarter…I do my research!

Gosh, with the summer months pretty flexible with teaching I read a lot. The result was that cross training and lifting were incorporated into my routine, in addition to the preventive stretches for my IT band. Good, Check.

I started running again in September. However, this time I continued to lift and began a core routine each time I ran. I was feeling changes and no pains from my IT. A bit over a month ago, I started taking pilates classes and absolutely LOVE how I feel after those classes. When I officially begin base building again in January for the relay, this is going to a vital component in my training.

…what am I getting at though? Why did I appreciate 2010’s injury?

Because it helped me solve this longing that I’ve had in knowing that in the future I do not wish to continue teaching. This was something that pained me daily during last year and the fall. I loved the students. I loved physiology. But teaching is not the career for me.

I teach physiology and anatomy, but there is so much more that I want to learn about the subject. I’ve researched proper injury prevention and recovery. I’ve researched what muscles articulate where and how certain repetitive movements can cause injury. I’ve researched proper strength training and the targeted muscles involved. I’ve researched the holistic benefits of pilates and the anatomy of movement.

In doing all these things, I realized that my passions still lie in the sciences. I graduated with a BS in Biology, but knew medical school wasn’t the right route for me. Throughout the past three years since graduation, I knew I wanted to go back to school, but I never had a strong inclination to what – until this past year – when I found a trend in what I was researching. [Or when I taught the skeletal and muscular system again this fall with all this new knowledge!]

After months of discerning, I’ve decided to go back to school for physical therapy and also get my certification in personal training while in the midst of applications!

I’m unbelievably excited.

2011 is going to be a busy year, but has so many wonderful things to look forward to because of its business!

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