Lately I've been out.
Out of the game.
Sidelined by a work related injury.  Yes, that's right a work related injury.

Take me away.  I'm OUT!

Work.  That's my injury.

At least that's what I've been telling myself.  I have been consumed by the megabytes of files that have been delivered to my overflowing inbox and have embedded themselves directly into my brain. I'm working ALL THE TIME.  My body is hovered over my laptop for 8 hours at the office.  My only breaks have been to refuel with the wonder of caffeine.  Occasionally my brain yells at my "Get up and go pee...it's time you moron, remember all that caffeine you've absorbed?!".
After I leave the office my evening is cluttered with domestic duties plus the evening shift to attend to all that work. I rush to the daycare, scoop up the wee girlie and head home.  Dinner is a hurried affair, there's a little kitchen clean up, a bit of toddler play as well as the occasional nod of recognition to my husband.  Between the hours of 6 and 9 I'm running between my home office & the rest of the house.  A little bit of domesticity here, a little bit of spreadsheet mastery there.  By 9:30 the wee one is settled, I've effectively said good night to hubby and I'm once again hunkered down in front of that glaring 17 inch screen for another consecutive FOUR HOURS.
At 6:30am the cycle starts again.

Sleeping?  No.  Just trying to make sense of the futility of it all.

Sidelined.  That's how I feel.  On the injured reserve list.

There has been little to no activity outside of my scurrying between different rooms in my house. For TWO WEEKS.  For someone who calls themselves a runner and is supposed to be training for the next big event, this SUCKS!  I could use stronger words, but let's just leave it at that. This workload is wearing me thin. Sucking up all my time like a monstrous vacuum. There is nothing left for me.  Like I said, sidelined.

Help!

So in the midst of all this work, I'm very angry that I have no ME time.  I don't have time to go for a walk let alone a 5k or longer run.  Somewhere though while thinking of all this work, doing all this work and being angry about all this work (well not really angry about the work, but how it's affecting other aspects of my life) I had a different kind of thought.

Is it really the work that's the problem?  Is my injury really work?

Squeezing out the lunacy!

No. It. Is. Not.  My injury is me.  I am my own injury.  I've let myself be consumed and driven by the work. I've made the choice to work these insane hours. I've made excuses, to myself.  I haven't let myself be active, and the more days that pass the harder it is.

One of my new favorite blogs is Shut Up + Run. Beth is a no nonsense, tell it like it is kind of gal. Her tagline is "It really is mind over matter. No excuses. Just do it!".  I couldn't agree more, and somewhere along the way I've forgotten this.
There's an inspirational running quote I found on FitSugar.com that I really like.

fitsugar - healthy happy you

On Sunday I took that first step.  And then another.  And another.  Until I had taken enough steps to log a 6k run.  While those first steps were hard, and the kilometers didn't exactly fly by, it felt great. Exactly what I needed to renew my spirit and re-energize my body.  It's a whole different lift from a caffeine high let me tell you!

So I've taken myself off the injured reserve list. I can no longer injure myself. I'm back in the game and determined to stay there. I may not always win, but as long as I give it a try I'll be content and satisfied that I'm working towards my personal goals.