Sick Elbow

My left elbow has been in pain for several weeks now.

The pain isn't that bad. I can still do everyday things without any difficulties. A bolt of pain just occasionally blitzes through my left arm whenever my elbow gets stretched too quickly or too far. The pain is less now, but it's still there.

I'm pointing my fingers on two culprits: me not doing enough warm-up before I exercised, or very early arthritis. Hopefully, it's just an over strained muscle or a hyper stretched tendon. I feel relief whenever I place a menthol plaster on the area, and that is enough to keep me from getting too worried.

As a result, I have been out in the cold in terms of training for almost over a month now. I am restraining myself even if I'm dying to do so to avoid making my injury worse. I can manage to train as long as I warm-up well and good, but I'm just being extra careful.

Any muscle I've added to my thin arms have atrophied by now -- something I regret. I've worked so hard to gain that little, and it seems that I have pushed myself too far and gave myself an injury. What the coaches said was true: the value of warming-up is usually learned the hard way, and the hard way it was for me.

Not pushing one's self to do more won't do any good, but pushing one's self too far is far more worse. I think it is all about learning the fine line between utter mediocrity and sheer stupidity.