In January this year, I strained my calf during a group personal training session, as I was preparing for my first goal race of the year, the Mount Buller Skyrun 45km ultramarathon scheduled at the start of April. I immediately began rehabbing my injury. I was really keen to do this race as it was my first time racing up at Mt Buller and the added bonus of racing with my sister and two friends. Nothing like some competitive spirit and banter to add to the fun of racing!
The calf injury really interrupted my training for about 6-8 weeks, leaving me little room for error and preparation down to a concentrated short window of only a few weeks. Unfortunately this rapid build up didn’t go to plan with my last long run I did on the Sunday prior to race day I pulled up sore. I saw the physio that Thursday, with the hope of it all being of ok but to no avail. This was extremely frustrating as I had been training quite consistently for a period of months prepare for this ultramarathon (other than the injury phase). In the end my initial calf injury was truly a discovered, a damaged nerve in my calf. I was now back to square one.
I had gone through months of frustrating short runs and many physio sessions to try and get my body right and get back consistently running after months of limited training to begin the year. I consistently get asked 'what's your next race?' and to be 100% honest I don't know. I thought about entering a half marathon a couple of weeks ago just for fun but I didn't feel ready and maybe it was the fear of missing out (fomo) driving me want to race.
It's been hard and frustrating to not to run and you may say there are people worse off than you, yes that's very true. Does running define me - maybe? Do I love running absolutely, and when you're pushing your body hard to get right but dealing with setbacks and you're not sure when your body will be right for the next event. I've now been training consistently for quite a few weeks, my learnings and the virtue of patience in running I have taken from my injuries this year is about finding a better balance between trying to push your body but also sticking to a plan (but being flexible too) and seeking more enjoyment in the training ( I've added street orienteering to my weekly runs to change up running sessions) that you are doing when focusing on a bigger goal and not the short-term reward of racing so sometimes you need to take a step back to take two steps forward sometimes it might be about taking a day off training, get a massage, doing an extra Yoga or Pilates session.
For now, running is just for fun with an eye on a bigger and better on 2018.
How do you deal with patience with your running?
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