Why I Love Injuries

It is a well-known fact that I am injured seemingly all the time, especially during track season. I never ran track until my junior year of high school, and during that winter I was hurt. The next winter I was hurt again. Track my senior year I had Achilles problems. I missed most of track my freshman year of college due to injury. I struggled through a small injury during cross country my sophomore year. My junior year of track was cut off due to injury, along with most of my summer training leading up to my senior year. This year I have been hurt once already during Christmas break, and so it was no surprise to me to find my knee swollen on this previous Sunday morning.

Let me back up briefly. After having a wonderful cross country season which saw a new 8k pr of 25:07, I came off of my post-season break ready to start crushing workouts and besting 4:10 in the mile this season. The combination of adding weightlifting (I didn't weight-train during cross country) and faster speed workouts hurt my hamstring and set me back a few weeks with almost a month in between workouts. Once I did get healthy I was able to get back on that grind and do some good workouts on the outdoor track, which has been helped immensely by our warmer temperatures and lack of snowfall this 'winter'. Leading up to my first indoor meet at NDSU, I was really worried about shin pain, the same kind of which had set me back all of track season the previous year. We decided to give it a try, but after stressing out about it all week and still not being in very good shape, I didn't run a good race at all and had to kick hard for a 8:49 3k victory. After the race I realized my feet were torn up pretty good with blisters that made it almost impossible to do cooldown, and with the help of the trainers I had to spend the entire next week doing everything possible to get them to disappear (along with alleviating shin pain).

The amazing thing about being stressed about blisters and bone problems all week was that I went into our next indoor meet at SDSU calm and in better shape than the previous week both mentally and physically. As opposed to trying to hit a time, I simply tried to win, and I did. The things we worked on in the trainer's room kept my blisters at bay. My lower mileage has kept my shin healthy. My workouts have kept me in shape amongst all of this.

So to wake up the next morning with a stiff and pretty decently-swollen left knee actually brought me to laugh out loud. It was so ridiculous and so incredibly ME that it was hilarious! Yes, I was scared, and I prayed to God for safe passage through yet another trial, but luckily it turned out to ONLY be some ruptured fluid sacs in my knee, which I can work through by training smart, icing, and wearing a knee sleeve.

Why am I thankful for all of this madness? I can honestly say that there are two things that I have gained from these injuries and times when I've had to sit back and watch.

1.) I've gained an appreciation and thankfulness for the sport that few people can have.
I am usually secretly envious of those people who are never injured and hit workouts all year round without conflict, however I claim that they cannot fully appreciate their efforts until they have had to spend long periods of time watching others run. Every day that I can run, even if it is an easy run, I am thankful for every step I take. Every workout finished is a success, no matter the process involved. Every race run is simply a gift from above; something to be thoroughly enjoyed. I have come to love running simply because of this.

2.) I've learned that I am willing to go through any trial to keep running.
In the previous paragraph I do not want to suggest that getting through injuries is easy. Many times I have contemplated simply giving up and letting my body have what it wants, but the joy of running always overtakes it; the joy of racing overrides it. I've had injuries to just about every part of the legs and I'm 100% in-tune to every little nook and cranny of complaints now. I know what it takes to get healthy- namely patience- and how to thus avoid mental breakdown. This further reinforces the first point of thankfulness, because making it through an injury and competing again is a feeling of accomplishment that is indescribable.

This is why I love injuries: they make me sit back and think about what I'm trying to do and trying to accomplish, and 100% of the time I have been joyful from my choice to keep going.