A Month of Healing

 

This past month has been both brutal but also transformative for me, in ways I didn’t expect. I think last year, when I broke my kneecap, that was coming off a fairly (comparatively) good stretch of health and just a few weeks after my 50k, and it felt like more of an interruption in my identity as a runner. 

But this foot injury has been different. It has broken away that identity that had been slowly crumbling away since my first 50k back. Because while I have been telling myself I’m healthy and should take full advantage of it and do everything I possibly can while I still can, the truth is that this is a disabled body and I can’t outrun it or out-train it. And trying to do that has only made every failure my body experiences that much more crushing. Plus it’s literally putting so much stress on my body that it’s causing injuries like this one. 

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, so why do I keep repeating the same crushing cycle? Rushing to start running again as soon as I possibly can, doing too much for this broken body of mine, because I’m so terrified of it starting to fail, and then bringing that failure upon myself? 

This injury is finally forcing me to reckon with who I am and look at how to get into the healthiest and strongest body I can develop, acknowledging my disabilities for once, instead of ignoring them, so that if and when it fails again, I’ll be in a better place to handle it. So I’ve started tracking my food to make sure I’m getting the proteins and vitamins and minerals I need to fuel and heal, and I’m learning how to consistently strength training so that my bones hopefully stop breaking. 

And this time I’m not counting down the days until I can run again because that isn’t the goal this time. Running can’t be my fix for my debilitating chronic pain and fatigue when it can be so easily taken away from me. I need to see what else can help. And strength training has a lot of research backing it for chronic pain and fatigue (and does seem more manageable in a flare). 

So that’s my focus. Getting strong. Getting back into nature as soon as I can, but slowly, cautiously. I need to find something that my failing body can’t take away from me again and again. And a way to keep my body working as long as possible. 

Really hoping that I find a better version of myself in the process.