I painfully got back out there and new areas started to hurt. I need to get back out there before I lose all my fitness." These little voices were urging me to give into my cravings to run. I kept thinking to myself, "I need to train. My body rebelled since I rejected its pleas for a break. I wasn't listening.Ī couple months later, I crashed. I was denying what was going on with my body. Yes, I would be a warrior and suck up the pain in the name of road racing! This I did, and my hamstrings got worse. I wasn't going to let this little ache mess things up for me! I had been training hard, and in hindsight, too hard. I was in the middle of my racing season and running PRs left and right. As runners, we are often put in the situation to decide if the pain or ache we feel warrants time off or if it is something that we can train through. Nine months ago I started to experience some pain in my hamstrings. They simply deny the possibility of injury". Tim Noakes, author of The Lore of Running, describes this denial as "the athletes refusal to accept that they are injured. When an injury occurs that threatens the runner's ability to train, denial often sets in.
Injuries are inevitable, for most runners who have been running long enough. The past seven weeks have been a mixed ride of ups and downs, of increasing my knowledge and of pure frustration. Now an injury has emerged that has struck me down. I did take some time off during my pregnancy, but my focus was such that the payoff was worth it.
I've had injuries in the past, but nothing that a couple days off generally didn't take care of. Perhaps surprisingly, I believe the experience is making me a better athlete and person. I have become a person who is grieving, longing to run again, yet learning to cope with the changes that occur when one's body stops doing something it has been doing for years. You know this to be true if you ever said, "I am a runner." I have found a new person emerge in my long stretch of not running, due to an injury. Not running creates an empty space and takes away something with which we identify ourselves, or even define ourselves by. George Sheehan referred to as the runner's experience when he was unable to run.
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