How to Get Over Yourself (and Get Over An Injury)
This year, I took on a lot of new athletic challenges. I rode multiple 100+ mile bike rides for charity - one on gravel, the other on mountain pass roads to Vail - and ran two 50k trail races. I was amazed by what I could convince my body to do, and attribute a lot of my fitness gains to my choice to run primarily on trail. Trail was soft. It was ever-changing, and it kept me on my toes (literally). It challenged me to use different muscles and strengthen my ankles, calves, and quads. It allowed me to tackle back-to-back running days and achieve higher mileage than I had ever before.
But trail running Boulder comes with vert. Lots of vert. Most of my trail runs started with a 600-1200 foot climb straight out of the parking lot. And after my first 50k race, I began to feel it. It started as a tightness in my right calf that wouldn’t go away, which I had seen on many occasions before whenever my running mileage reached 40+ miles a week. After running the Pike’s Peak 50k in August, it got worse. In the mornings I would wake with a pretty bad limp, unable to put my full weight on my right foot until my Achilles tendon woke up and stretched out for the day. Initially, it would go away towards the middle of a run, once I was warmed up. But then it didn’t. The pain would stay throughout the run and throughout the rest of my day. Running became a challenge, and I thought to myself: it’s alright, I’m going to Europe in September, I’ll take those two weeks fully off from running and come back better than ever.
Well, I went to Europe. I walked 10+ miles a day in flat canvas shoes, over cobbled streets and the many hills that Croatia and Switzerland had to offer. I came back with my Achilles tendon in worse shape than I left. Yes: I was a fool. I’ve learned my lesson and have since purchased the most supportive, geriatric shoes I cold find for my future travels.
But I returned from Europe with a 30k trail race planned for November. I wanted to survive it, and because I’m most competitive with myself, I wanted to do well. I was planning on leaping straight back into my training plan in October, planning on ramping up the mileage until our trip to Moab. But my foot had other plans. It was tender to the touch. It still hurt to walk.
I was anxious and annoyed. I was not fun to be around. I began having reoccurring nightmares of my Achilles tendon going snap in the middle of a run. The last time it had been this bad was 2020, after a year of running a couple of my first marathons and longer trail efforts; that year, my Achilles forced me to take close to a full ten months off from serious running. I would do anything to make sure that didn’t happen again. I was thinking: didn’t my body know that I had plans? That I had races I was looking forward to, trails I wanted to visit? Why did this always happen to me?
After allowing myself some initial wallowing, I took a good hard look at the obvious culprits: my shoes and running habits. On recommendation from a local orthopedic doctor, my Nike road shoes went in the trash. I finally relented and purchased some Hokas. One pair for road, one for trail, and one for casual use. (Side note: Hoka, please sponsor me. Your shoes are expensive.) I wore my “casual” Hokas for close to a month straight. I embraced the grandma shoes. I avoided steep vert and learned how to do the rehab exercises I would need to strengthen my crunchy Achilles tendon, to break up the fascia and make sure that the muscle was loose and would no longer pull my tendon into gross, deformed shapes.
And then I did something that I would never have dreamed of in my earlier athletic career as a rower: I took more weeks fully off from running. I didn’t run at all for almost a month. I minimized walking. I became ruthless about my rehab routine. I prioritized stretching and rest. But during this time, I was still able to maintain fitness through other sports I loved: I cycled, swam, snowshoed. I even allowed myself to cross-trained on the elliptical as long as the pain stayed away. Instead of pushing through the injury, I listened to my body, despite the looming deadline of the Moab 30k drawing ever closer on my calendar.
And then my body surprised me: my Achilles got better, and I was still fit enough to run the race. The world didn’t end. I didn’t DNF. I was still able to put on a decent performance and could return to running for enjoyment. I handled the initial canyon climbs, steep rock features, and Moab sand pits with agility and a surprising amount of maintained endurance. And in the future, I’ll be sure to listen to my body even sooner so that I can preempt all the pain, stress, and grumpiness I put myself (and partner) through.
Don’t get me wrong: I know my Achilles is a weak spot for me (it is, literally and figuratively, my Achilles heel). I know I’ll have to maintain my routines to make sure it doesn’t come back. It still hurts after some high mileage weeks, but now I know how to address it. I can take some time on the bike. I can stretch it through the day. I can strengthen my body to better handle the peaks and climbs that this town has to offer.
The experience was valuable for me in many ways. I’m a proud person. I’m competitive. Whenever I’ve faced injuries in the past, I would adopt a “tough it out” mentality; I would hang on until some critical event passed and then let myself blow up, pushing through pain until lit ultimately hampered my training and probably enacted some permanent damage on my body. But taking time off and finally following through (with diligence) on rehab allowed me to get better far faster than I would have otherwise (looking at you, 2020). It allowed me to have a great day on the Moab course and run all through winter break. It allowed me to enter 2023 feeling equipped to handle my weakness and ready to train for my year ahead.
I’m mainly writing this to hold myself accountable. I know I’ll face some other sort of nagging injury in the future. I know it will be an uphill battle not to push through it, not to run through the pain and blow up when it matters. I’m writing this to remember a time when I rested, to provide evidence of the time that I did swallow my pride, and was rewarded for it.
Sometimes it’s hardest to go easy on yourself.
