Hello everyone and welcome back to school! I hope everyone is settling into the semester nicely. I am so excited to get back into the routine of blogging and sharing my thoughts with you all. Let’s jump right into it with a little life update: Troubles of an Ex-Runner.
I would be lying if I said I could ever have called myself a true “runner”. As one of those people who played sports all throughout high school but didn’t continue in college, a story I’m sure lots of people have also experienced, I can confirm that once you stop a routine of constant exercise, it is incredibly difficult to get back into it. The path from having soccer practice 6 days a week to absolutely no obligation to even look at a treadmill is a rocky road. That being said, I decided last spring that I was going to finally put the effort into developing a good exercise routine that was doable and enjoyable…seemingly an impossible feat from my perspective.
This summer, I had an internship in Erlanger, KY. Just based on that information alone, I bet it’s pretty obvious that I had quite a bit of free time with nothing but nature and the occasional trip to the far-away Trader Joes. I took this opportunity to really commit to my new fitness goals: running a 5k. In the past, I have participated in quite a few 5k races. Every year, my family participates in the Saratoga Springs Turkey Trot, but in past years, I have noticed that I can’t just run the race cold turkey without some serious physical consequences the remainder of Thanksgiving break. So, I decided I would participate in a local 5k and actually train (or at least attempt to “train” as much as I could in three months).
Over the course of May and June, I ran consistently to make sure that I would beat my goal time (33 minutes) with hopefully a few seconds to spare. In those months, I actually found myself relying on those runs to maintain my physical AND mental well-being. Even if it was a short recovery day, I still felt accomplished with the day after exercising.
Nothing too exciting happened the day of the race in all honesty, other than running a minute under my goal time (32 minutes FLAT – woohoo!) I went home, grabbed some lunch with friends, and took the next day or two to rest before training for the THON 5k in October. Here’s where the “ex” in ex-runner comes into play. A few days after the race, I started to notice a little pain in my foot. Nothing crazy that I couldn’t handle, so I didn’t think too much of it.
Flash forward to August, and there is pain with every step I take. In my brain, it was so gradual that it would just gradually go away. After a lot of convincing from my mom, I went to UHS at the beginning of the semester for some X-rays. Apparently, I had caused some sort of stress fracture that went untreated for so long that my bone started growing more bone to compensate for the stress I continued to put on it from running through the pain. While I’m still waiting on MRI results to determine the next steps, I find myself missing the routine that I built over the summer.
I can’t run or walk long distances in a boot. You can only do so many bicep curls until you get bored of them. I tried rowing, and it’s just not my style. As I look for new ways to exercise my body and clear my mind without being on my feet, I am finding myself in a little rut. Hopefully, there is an easy solution to my foot troubles. But in the mean time, maybe I’ll try something new! If you have any suggestions, I am open to trying anything that could give me the same feeling of normalcy as running did for me all summer. Hoping for a healed foot and 5k races in the future!
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