Reflections of an injured Runner…..I’m glad I listened to my body

Earlier this summer, I had 2 injuries that pretty much sidelined my from from running for about a month.  You can read more about that here and  here.  In short, I was diagnosed with severe arthritis in my right knee and cuboid syndrome. The arthritis has been a long time coming as I had ACL surgery over 10 years ago and was told that arthritis would be inevitable. The cuboid syndrome was out of the blue and I still don’t know where that came from.

Anyhoo, since one injury was with the knee and the other with the foot, I was not able to run for almost a month. I had just started track workouts and was loving them and had just begun training for my Fall races in October.  The devastation I felt is describable but for any runners out there who have been injured, I know you understand my pain.  On top of that, the frustration continued to be for me that I am the most fit, healthy and active that I have been in my entire life but yet, I keep getting injured. Quite frustrating for sure!

Although the break from running was difficult, in retrospect, I am glad that for the first time in a long time, I followed the Drs. suggestions and you know what…..the foot and the knee healed up well.  The knee will always give me issues but the severe pain and swelling went away. The pain in my foot…yup that went away too!

Here’s what I know-listening to the Drs. and my body put me back on track and has allowed me to have an awesome racing/running Fall season so far. If you are a long time reader, you know that I don’t always listen to my body and rarely listen to my Drs.-lol!!  As I thought about my racing/running performances this Fall, I know that I can attribute some of my success to listening to the Drs a bit more but most importantly listening to my body.

Clearly my body was tired and breaking down and decided to shut me down so that it could heal and get back to a place where it could respond to training and racing efforts and to be able to perform at a decent level. My running/racing season is not over yet but I am looking forward to the remainder of my races and am glad that at this time, my body is at a point where it is healed and recovered and allowing me to use it to run strong!

Are you good at listening to your body? How long has an injury kept you out of commission?