I'm Not Going to Panic

For the past 2 months I've been dealing with a running injury. I'll save the whining and just say: it sucks and I'm crabby about it. I credit this injury to not taking the proper time to rest after my marathon, ahem, running a PR 10k six days later, and getting lazy with my before and after stretching. Cross training might have been a good idea, too. The reason I didn't rest was because I felt so strong and I didn't want to lose all of my hard-earned fitness. Well, now I have lost it, lesson learned.
Three weeks ago my orthopedic surgeon sent me for 4 weeks of physical therapy twice per week. I'm making gains in strength and flexibility but here I am 3 weeks in and I can't get past a slow mile on the treadmill without experiencing pain the following day. Take note: when you tell your physical therapist that what you have done so far hasn't helped, she will push you 10x harder and maybe even try to kill you in a single hour session. I learned this today as her dagger fingers dug into my hip area to "release" my iliopsoas muscle. Repeat on the other side. Thanks to my pride, I held back a full-out cry. I could have wept. She knew the pain she was causing because she kept remarking on how tight the muscle was and dealt with my facial cues by breaking eye contact and asking me about my weekend. Smooth woman. The stubborn side finally released about 2 minutes in. When the iliopsoas released the sensation was that of the PT letting up on the muscle, even though she really hadn't. Then she made me do a half hour of the hardest exercises she could come up with. You know, wall sits while squeezing a ball for forever minus a day, standing on a balance board while balancing on one foot and crouching to reach for a stick that was nearly out of reach, that kind of thing.

So, I'll do everything she tells me to do. I'll do all of my homework exercises. I'll push my races back or cut down on their length. I will run again, eventually.