Last Thursday I had PRK surgery on my right eye to correct the vision. PRK is a rougher surgery to recover from than LASIK, but it was my only option if I wanted to correct my vision. My corneas are too thin for LASIK, my prescription is pretty strong and I have dry eyes… all things that would make me a better candidate for PRK. I will have the PRK procedure done on my left eye next month.

The surgery itself was really easy, but my vision was supposed to get blurrier a few days after the surgery (normal part of this process). My doctor told me that I should take a whole week off from running. When I made a face as he recommended the break, he said, “Alright… my main concern is that you’ll get sweat in your eye and this first week is so critical in the healing. So if you take precautions to not get sweat in your eye and take it easy, you can start running again a few days post-op.”

YAY!

So I was really excited to run on Monday, except my vision had reached a really blurry point by then. But I didn’t care, I was going to run anyway and hope that I didn’t trip over some unseen obstacle. I put on a Halo Headband and a Headsweats visor on top of that, in hopes they would make sweat incapable of reaching my eyes.

I set out to run, feeling great… elated to be on the move again. Until I was no longer moving…
1.48 miles into my run I came to a dead stop, my gut was cramping up. Literally, I had to stop running or else risk the humiliation of crapping my pants on the side of the road. I stood there for a few minutes, just breathing deeply hoping the cramp would pass. And when the pain lessened, I turned myself around to backtrack to my home; running when I could, walking most of it.

I was disappointed that after several days off that was my first run back, what a mess.

Yesterday I just did the 1 mile loop around my neighborhood in my Vibram Five Fingers. I will write another post more about these now that I’ve had them for a while.

This morning I woke up early, ready to get in a good run. A lot of people have questioned why I would be so excited to wake up early today… see, it’s my birthday today. But I can’t think of a better present to give myself than to head out for a good run. (Well, that and I’m going to register for a couple races today too!)

I started my run and realized after a mile that I forgot to bring a drink with me. I can’t run in the summer here in Vegas without some kind of electrolytes. My head pounds and I feel awful. So I ran back home, grabbed my bottle, filled it with some water and dumped in a packet of G2 and got back to running.

I ran 6.7 miles this morning, I ignored my pace completely. I just set my Garmin to display the distance and time of day to me (so I wouldn’t keep wandering around and miss work). I still haven’t looked at the pace for the run and I don’t care… I just wanted to give myself the gift of running. It was wonderful.