How I Stayed Patient While Recovering From a Running Injury
Keeping Your Chin Up When It’s Scraping the Road
I finally did the math today. It’s been around 8 weeks. Over 60 days of not running.
I last wrote about battling my waning mojo on February 22 and a few days later it wasn’t just my mojo that had suffered. I woke to a mysterious strain in my lower back, a debilitating spasm-like thing that had me bent over and pleading for a hard floor to lie on.
It’s in my nature to paint any pain or injury (from running of course) no matter what the reason, as a wildly dramatic event. I make it as theatrical as possible by pronouncing any manner of whys and wherefores that in no way were my fault or at all foreseeable. The Gods of running injuries, in all their ubiquitous power always took me by surprise, never rearing their evil presence with any warning.
It’s always a case of my whining to the heavens; I don’t know what I did?! Followed quickly by What the hell did I do? In turn, followed by weeks of crabby miserable woe-is-me behavior and an even more dismal experience for the unbelievably patient woman I am blessed to call my wife.
This strain (or cold, or tear, or major spinal compression injury! not) came at an ironically passive time in my training. I was between plans. I was slow loping without a watch. I tried a mindfulness run. Slow and meditative. There was no fartlek. No intervals. No strides at the end of a 12-miler.
I even watched as my Garmin-determined VO2 went from 46–45. An especially hard and emotional pill to swallow.
Admit it, you’ve been there. Am I right? Am I!?
Even though I jest, the commotion of my own injury is made serious by the collective boat we’re all in as runners. I know I’ll be 100 percent again, but will we as a community? Will our run clubs return in person? Will virtual races remain for years to come? Will track meets play out before full stands? Will I finally get to hear the gun on Blackheath at London ’21?
There has been a slow, steady, and somewhat strange return to the competitive parts of our sport. Records are being broken at an alarming rate either by super shoe-wearing stars or by the nature of an event being made more performance-friendly in its solitude, or perhaps in its peacefulness. But the rest of us, back here in the far corrals, are still busting our PRs in private. On our own trails and tracks. On the roads outside our doors.
Yesterday, I took the dog for a stroll around what we call the “big loop” in our neighborhood. Her usual morning romp is around our 1-mile “small loop”, therefore my pronouncing such an athletic endeavor as the 2-mile ramble was met with caution. “What about your back,” asked my wife. “I’ve got this,” I boldly proclaimed. Then, I realized in the first few steps, that I’d said it like an action-movie hero.
Something had flipped. Emotionally. Internally. And it had nothing to do with my back.
But I didn’t know that. Yet.
I did know that my tense and sore muscles had been improving. I was able to get up from sitting and move forward with greater alacrity. It took less time for my upper body to ease into an upright homo sapiens-like position, and less like Cro-Magnon man. I had even done a pathetic (but I did it!) rendition of the classic 7-minute workout.
And so it was, a mere 5 minutes into our walk that I asked Gia if she wanted “to jog?”
The skies opened. Seas parted. Birds sang. I was suddenly, actually, shuffle jogging on my toes with the dog loping happily in front of me.
And there was not a hint of a smidge of a note of pain anywhere.
Naturally, I picked up the pace and kicked my heels up a bit.
Wait, what? Okay, it was only for like, 5 seconds. I just wanted to see; you know? I know…I know you know.
I scrolled through my Garmin’s menu and hit “Walk”. The first time I’d hit a workout button since February. This is on, I thought, in my action-movie hero voice.
Our time out there was a mix of shamble and dance, waddle and walk, and it was nothing short of delightful. I tread so lightly, so butterfly-like, that I think I may have discovered a new drill to try. I’ll call it the More-Than-Bearable-Lightness-of-Being-on-the-Run-Again drill!
As we pulled into the driveway, I hit the watch out of habit and looked down. Blank grey screen. Dead battery. In an ominous moment of kismet, I hadn’t noticed the battery at 1% when I had hit “Walk”. But somewhere deep inside I had known the watch would’ve conked during the loop.
The pre-injury me would’ve been very frustrated at knowing my stats for the outing would not be recorded. But one of the gifts of this time off, this time spent recovering everything (and not just my body) has been that of simply slowing down. Of taking the extra time, whether to heal the back or breathe fresh air or cook a sumptuous meal or curl up with a great read.
I’m taking the time now, to go as fast as possible later.
See you at the finish.
