Team Rehab

What was Bruce Willis’ line from that corrupt bookies movie? “There was a time.” Hell yeah there was Bruce. There was a time indeed.

There was a time when running less than five miles didn’t seem like it was even worth getting kitted up for. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! One year ago today my fitness world faltered. After a nasty crossfit injury, I’ve spent most of the last year unable to participate in many of my favorite activities. And even some of my less favorite, like walking up the three flights of steps to my door.

To say this last year has been hard is an obvious understatement. However, if I’ve learned anything it’s that sport has its seasons. There are times when the sun is shining and it all lines up so perfectly, and seasons of dark where it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.  Like good workouts and bad, I try to take injury in stride. That sounds very zen of me now, which is to say that I try. Of course that’s not to say that adult-sized this-isn’t-what-I-want-it-to-be tantrums haven’t been thrown. I’m just trying to see more balance.

Despite the struggles of the last year, the winter of this injury seems to be fading. For the first time in a year, I’ve started to run a little. I have been able to bear enough weight on my knee to walk/run/walk to the end of the street and back. The first night I was grinning like I’d won an Olympic medal. Maybe that’s the whole point of injuries. To give us the opportunity to stop taking our accomplishments for granted, to remember to appreciate every single stride.

Team Rehab marches on.

I ran?

Tonight, after being out of commission since an unfortunate CrossFit incident 197 days ago (not that I’m counting), I went on a blind date with Running. My physical therapist said running was just my type with a great personality. As I walked through the gym doors, I was nervous, like heart racing, butterflies in the stomach, nervous. I wasn’t sure if Running was going to be awesome and hot or awkward and painful. It turns out Running was all of those things.

It’s been a long year, a year that isn’t even over. A year in which I still have a lot of work left to get back to “normal”. In April, after having the best running race to date, it all came crashing down at my first CrossFit session. I’m sure there are places where CrossFit is awesome, this wasn’t one of those places. Telling new people to squat deeper and go faster, while you have your back turned to them and their form, is negligent. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

I did 10 minutes on the treadmill tonight, alternating walking and slow running every 100 meters. It felt good and it hurt. I tried to listen to the pain since my body is in a precarious position now and I have to make sure I don’t push too hard too fast. This is a challenge for me. Even though I may have never stood on a podium, I am still an athlete. As endurance athletes we are taught to ignore pain, we bottle it up, we push it down, we let it wash over us. But we don’t listen to it, we don’t give in. But tonight I realized, I have to embrace it. This time, I have to listen.

And so, as my father would say, I mush on.