“No athlete is truly tested until they’ve stared an injury in the face and came out on the other side stronger than ever” – Anonymous

I have missed running and I have missed blogging but it seems as though the inability to do one took away my ability to do the other.

Life has been a crazy series of ups and downs since my marathon at the end of January.

I continued to try and run despite having lingering pain from my marathon injury, only to find out in May that I had broken my pelvic bone. I was stunned when I heard the news; it was certainly not what I expected the doctor to say to me… Lucky for me, I had only broken my lower left pelvic bone and not the upper one as well (however, you could see on the x-ray where it had also tried to start breaking) so my break was a “stable” one that required no surgery or extra hardware. I rehabbed it the right way; I went to PT, I did strengthening exercises, I only returned to running how/when I was told that I could.

When I started back running, it was completely miserable… My body had forgotten what it was supposed to be doing and how it was supposed to be doing it. Slowly but surely, I started to run more and enjoy it more. I had a series of great runs but still was only running 30 minutes three times per week. I wanted to run more but I was doing my best to be patient. Luckily, I was able to keep riding my bike because it was non-impact so I could continue training for my big ride, Six Gap Century which is on September 24, 2017 (and which I’ll explain in a whole other post hopefully). Unfortunately, my tri season was going to be a wash because I wasn’t able to run enough for a race.

On August 27, I joined two of my amazing friends to compete as a relay team for the Hammerhead Olympic Triathlon. I completed the bike leg of the tri and felt great with minimal hip pain. My teammates did awesome as well and we came in 4^th. I left feel amazing after having FINALLY been able to compete in a race this season.

But, as is so often the case, life had other plans for me… Later that evening, while leaving a friend’s house the unthinkable happened… I didn’t see a hole and as I stepped off a step went right into it and rolled my foot completely under. The series of pops I heard were some of the worst sounds my ears have ever endured. I fell straight to the ground, rolling, and repeatedly saying “no, no, no.” The pain was intense but the mental realization was that much worse… When I was finally able to muster a sentence all I kept saying was, “I cannot be injured again. Please God!” But injured is exactly what I was.

Luckily (or unluckily), I had only badly sprained my ankle. It looked terrible; it was completely swollen and all sorts of strange colors. The pain I felt was unbearable and brought me to tears on numerous occasions. I couldn’t sleep for days because every time I moved my foot, it woke me up. I was a mess. I couldn’t run and now I couldn’t bike either. My brain and heart were a disaster. I threw a spectacular pity party every time I was home alone.

It didn’t take me long to get back on the bike but running was a whole different story… I was supposed to stay in the boot for a month but there was no way it was going to last that long. Last week I took it off for a day and was quickly back in it the next day. Friday night it came off and hasn’t been put back on since. Today, I decided to go run with my run group. And running is exactly what I did. I meant to take it easy but I pushed myself instead and it was GLORIOUS.

I have come to love running in a way that I can’t really explain. It is easy for me to explain my love for cycling but not quite as easy to explain my love for running. There is just something about it that moves something in me and makes me feel alive. I can’t quite pinpoint it; maybe it is that it doesn’t come easy and I have to work for every single thing or maybe I love it because it was taken away from me for so long. Distance does make the heart grow fonder after all, or that’s what they say at least.

At this point, I can only hope and pray that I stay healthy enough to get back to running more because I am pretty sure that if I injure myself again I will pretty much lose my mind. I have definitely learned (over and over and over again) that injuries will teach you precisely what you love the most. But, I have also learned that every single thing that happens to us truly does happen for a reason. All of my injuries have forced me to focus on my swimming which is I am slowly starting to actually like too. I almost feel like I am in the twilight zone after having typed that last sentence…

Stay tuned. Who knows what will happen next and what other lessons I will learn along the way.