The Epilogue of a Running Injury

"You will have everything you are dreaming of and way more. But not now. Not all at once. You have to get there one step at a time."


Five  months ago on this date was a dark day for me. Or maybe a wonderful one. But we'll get to that later. On November 12, I was running a cross country race at NCAA regionals. And my foot hurt. I ran this race anyways you see, because I loved to run, and because my foot hurting wasn't something that was going to stop me from going to nationals. I ran this race because running was all that mattered to me in my life. As long as I had running everything would be OK. I ran this race to prove to everyone and myself that I was tougher and braver and that a couple of little running injuries couldn't stop me.  Most of all, I ran this race because I had to, because running is what I do. Those were the last steps I took for three months, as halfway through the race that I had to run, I fell down and passed out. 


I didn't need a  doctor or an xray or crutches or a medical degree to tell me what I had known for the entire past week. My foot was broken. I suspected that it was broken the week leading up to regionals, but didn't say anything because you know...I had to run that race. After the first mile of the race I didn't suspect. I knew it was broken. I also knew I wasn't going to finish before passing out.

I spent the next 2 weeks of my life on the couch. The next 3 months on crutches. And the next 4 months not running one single step. I cried a lot. And I snapped at people. And I stopped doing homework or going out with my friends or taking showers (YOU try taking showers standing on one foot!).

To their credit, my beloved friends stuck by me throughout all of this. They patiently listened to my whining. They carried me across busy Milwaukee streets. We stopped talking about running and about nationals and about cross country.

Somewhere in the past five months all that sadness  changed. I miss running for sure. But I realized this had to happen in a completely different way than that race had to happen. I needed to find a life beyond running, and stop revolving my life around it. I had to learn to love to swim and love to bike. I also had to learn to love my life beyond the scope of athletics. It was hard at first to see the beauty in the world without being able to run my way through it. Slowly but surely I realized that I wouldn't have come as far if I had run through all of this.

I learned to enjoy going out to eat without having to go on a 10 mile run first. I learned to work out and not have to feel dead to the world for the next 5 hours. Sometimes taking a day off can be wonderful even. The reason I ever started running in the first place was because it took me away from real life for awhile and let me feel free. When running was what made me start to feel trapped my body knew that it was time to stop running. To refocus, to re-figure, and relearn why I loved running in the first place. You see, my foot had  to break. Something had to give eventually. That something just happened to be my heel bone.

For years I preached my love of running, my appreciation of it as a gift. But it took not running for a few months for me to learn that it's more than that. I love life. It's life that's the gift we're given. Running...running is not life. It's just a part of that gift. It's like getting a new car. Life is that car...and running is maybe the free satellite radio that gets thrown in. It's not the whole package, it's just a part.

So I started appreciating my life without running. Because I couldn't properly appreciate it with running. I went out for margaritas with my friends. I drank Irish Cream in my coffee late at night and read books. I stayed up and watched movies. I ate things that were bad for me. I took a spin class, a yoga class. I flew to California by myself. I went to see an nutritionist and learned how to take care of myself. I wrote essays, and got admitted into and committed to a PsyD. program. I figured out what I'm going to do with my life.

Now that I've done all that, I'm ready to start introducing running into my life again. I guess that at times you have to lose something to gain more.

Sorry for all the philosophy and sentimental-ness today. Couldn't be helped. Some people learn lessons quickly. Some people need to be smacked in the head and given some time to figure out why.