Push through the pain aka Wogging with Fibromyalgia

 

 

Push through the pain aka Wogging with Fibromyalgia

Our first official 5k of our personal challenge  (we’ll call it Wogstrong 2013) was the Hot Chocolate 5k. We registered for it in December 2012 and began training,  giving ourselves 4 weeks to prepare.  My sister and I decided cold weather wogging and walking would be our best plan of attack along with the Couch to 5K app.  Our first wogging practice session (walk + Jog) was more of a walking session, well more of a walking and me crying like a baby and say “I can’t” a lot.  I have Fibromyalgia.  I was diagnosed over ten years ago, but never really would admit it or talk about it. I felt it had a stigma attached to it about being lazy or even crazy.  I have learned that NOT talking about it or admitting I have it, doesn’t change how bad I hurt on any given day, doesn’t change how the symptoms have worsened over the years and I know that I am in no way a lazy person. (crazy, maybe)

A quick definition of Fibromyalgia,  the nerves in my body react different to pain than yours. What should be a simple discomfort to the average person is severe and sometimes crippling to me. I have pain, severe pain in different areas of my body and it changes constantly. I can be fine today and wake up tomorrow feeling like my ankles are broken.  My lower back hurts, always. Silly things like elastic in a sleeve touching my skin can be so painful that I can focus on nothing else. A kiss from my husband with a beard can feel like ice picks stabbing me in the face, bless his heart he is SO good to me and SO patient.  Sounds over stimulate me and cause me to be irrational and angry….for example the sounds of people eating make me VERY agitated.  I haven’t sat at the table to eat with my entire family for 6 years now.  I am a smart woman, but mid sentence I lose words and can’t bring myself to speak them, no matter how hard I try.  I struggle with short term memory loss, they call it Fibro Fog, but I can’t remember why I got up and went into another room, what I went for the fridge for, or where I parked at the store more often than not. I really don’t say how often this happens because I think it’s pretty scary. I have to remind myself when doing one load of laundry leaves me exhausted, that I’m not lazy, it’s fibro.  “Push through the Pain” is my personal mantra, even tattooed it on my arm. What started as an homage to giving birth naturally, truly defines me in my life now.  When people ask what it means I respond with “Having babies, losing babies, having husbands, losing husbands, being fat , losing weight, every aspect of life.”  More recently it’s running that I’m pushing through.

Back to training, when we registered to do the 5K we said we could do a 14 minute mile…. And we could not, so our  4 week goal was to knock our 17 minute mile down to 14 so we weren’t liars! Our first practice after 10 steps, I felt like my shins were breaking and simply said I can’t and walked it. (New shoes were now a must)  I knew Elise was ready to run on without me, but she stayed by my side and walked the 2 miles with a lot of whining and threatening to vomit along the way. Elise just kept telling me I could and I was, and I did.   Three or more times a week we wogged or walked as fast as we could for the 4 weeks prior to the race….we were using the Couch to 5K app but repeated week 2 every week, we vowed not to move on until we could actually completely run minute and a half our sessions without walking when we were suppose to be running.  Understand that Elise and I are short I am 5 feet nothing and she is shorter, so our legs have to work twice as hard to keep up with the average persons stride and pace! I was 30 pounds over weight and  struggling to just move air as we walked hard,  I was realizing how  out of shape I really was on our walks, but we were going to do this.  It might kill me but I was not gonna take the “Poop out van” before I even did my first real 5K.

A week prior to the January  race in sleet, rain and freezing temps, we bundled up and headed out for some REAL training.  Soaked and shivering we finished our wog realizing we needed to buy appropriate cold weather running gear.  This time we were going focus less on costuming and actually try and better our time.  Keeping in mind, that by even getting off our butts and trying was better than where we were a month before!

Fibromyalgia might be the reason I won’t be able to move tomorrow, but it is not the excuse I will use today to not push myself!