The problem is that an evil mass of gook from hades has lived in my quad, off and on, for nearly two years. It lives on despite 4 different rest periods ranging from 3 to 6 weeks. After I ran the New York City Marathon in November of 2013, I took 6 weeks of rest, followed by light running, cross-training, more stretching, and weights. Sounded liked a good plan, what can go wrong?
Well, the evil mass of gook returned, and my latest of 3 doctors I have seen is an orthopedic surgeon from the Core institute and a doctor for the Detroit Pistons. (Oh, that's cool, he's important!) (Wait, they're in last place). A nice shot of cortisone chased the evil away, but like most evil things, it wasn't really dead, and it has returned for yet another sequel. Next up was the MRI
The morning of the MRI, I ran a bit harder than I have been. I thought "dammit, I want the evil gook to show itself". I did 8 miles, the longest of my long runs these days, in an hour and 3 minutes on a perfect spring day sporting my Runwell gear. It was wonderful, and as I write this, the evil gook smolders.
They do MRI's on Saturday nights at 8 pm I found out. And the MRI machines even have name brands written in big letters for you to see. Mine was a Toshiba. I imagined walking through Best Buy looking at a Samsung and Sony MRI machine, but then seeing the LG MRI machines at half the cost. I'm now a big Toshiba fan.
I found the MRI experience incredibly relaxing once I got used to the crazy-ass noises it makes, like it is about to malfunction and squeeze me to death. After the nurses told me not to move, put headphones over my ears, and there were no kids or new puppy to deal with, I was good. I could have stayed another hour. Now I wait.
I feel fortunate to be able to run. The injury is low grade, but chronic, and only hampers me from running fast and far. I'm not fully grounded, and I am still planning on doing two half marathons for Runwell this year. ("Don't care how, I want it know").
April 22nd is the sign up for the Disney World Marathon, and my family is hoping to go. There's got to be a Toshiba machine out there that can fix me.
