I Finally Jogged For The First Time in Months
It hurt. It was the best thing ever.
I haven’t done anything that can be considered running since the end of November when I fractured my ankle. Before that injury, I went for long walks or jogged around my neighborhood at night or at the crack of dawn whenever I felt stressed out. But dealing with partially torn ligaments and a fractured bone meant months of recover, losing a lot of flexibility in my ankle, and losing the ability to run, much less speed walk for too long.
To make myself feel better, I began to ask my sister to go walking with me. We’d walk my usual jogging route and towards the large park and cemetery that I would go around, and then we’d stretch in the workout area of the park. Going uphill would make my left ankle sore and I’d have to stretch it a lot longer than my right ankle.
It sucked.
It was a little embarrassing for me to see how much longer it took to walk the route than jog it and how winded I was after hardly being able to even hobble around my house for weeks on end.
We started going at least once a week on top of going to the gym some evenings or mornings. It was great to have some company and it encouraged me to try going faster and faster. Eventually, I tried hobbling up one side of the large block that went uphill. I had to give up a quarter of the way.
A week later, I tried again. I took a deep breath and took off.
I started jogging up the hill.
My ankle was sore, I was going pretty slowly, and I was sweating like crazy… but I made it up the hill without stopping. It was what I needed to boost my confidence after losing some with my injury and some of the weight gain that came with it.
Earlier this week, I got back on a treadmill again. I haven’t been on once since November and couldn’t believe that I could jog again, even if it was just at a little under four miles an hour on a slight incline. I sweated and pushed myself through it. I could only really jog for 10 minutes, but I could jog.
A fractured bone isn’t as bad as many other injuries. And I definitely didn’t have the longest downtime compared to people I knew who have been injured… but any injury, especially one that effects mobility sucks. It made me appreciate all the times I went out for a long walk or jog. It made me appreciate my legs, even if I don’t like them all the time.
I think I can jog again, and I’m so excited that it’s even just slightly possible again.
Thank you for reading! How do you deal with an injury?
