My return to running after surgery in December was interrupted three weeks ago. I thought I was doing well; friends in my running group commended me for coming back strong. I seemed to be regaining the legs and lungs of endurance running. But then, the day of my last run before flying home from Kauai, I felt some pain and tightness in my left Achilles tendon when I started the run. After the first couple of kilometres, the pain diminished to a tolerable level, so I thought I could push through it. But after another 10 kilometres, the pain had become so severe that I was forced to walk the last three home. Three weeks later, I’m still waiting for the injury to fully heal.
The treatment for Achilles tendinitis is time and patience. I’ve tried to rush the healing by doing short runs, and it only sets me back further. It will take three to four weeks to heal if I’m patient; longer if I’m not. In the meantime, I can see the running season slipping away. I’m registered to run a half marathon in seven weeks, for goodness’ sake!
I’m working hard at not being resentful. I chose to get the hernia repair surgery done because I thought I could afford to take six weeks off from running, but this interruption was unplanned. I remind myself of what I once heard the late Ed Whitlock (world champion octogenarian marathoner) say: “When you’re a runner, you run between injuries.” But I still tend to mope around the house when Judy goes out for a run and I’m left behind.
Then I remember a discovery I made 42 years ago that I consider to be one of the critical inflection points in my life. It was a conversion experience that brought me out of darkness into the light. For years I had suffered from low-grade depression, a moroseness that might fit the clinical term dysthymia. One day, like a revelation from heaven, I realized that my moods were significantly under my control. “I can be happy if I try”, I wrote in the little journal I kept at the time.
And so today, I choose to be grateful. Grateful that, in spite of my injury, I can walk (sometimes with a limp), lift weights (although lunges are out of the question for now), do my usual core exercises, even ride my bike. Today I did an hour-long bike ride with no calf or ankle pain.
I’m grateful that even though I can’t run right now, Judy is killing it. Usually we spur each other on to greater achievements, but she is excelling as she runs on her own.
I’m grateful there are four seasons to the year. This latest setback may cost me the spring running season, but there’s still the summer and the fall. I am hopeful that all the pieces will come together to allow me to train aggressively for races in the last half of the year.
And I am grateful that I finally can see the end of a long Ontario winter. Yesterday the first spring flowers began to bloom in our garden.
There are two choices when our plans are interrupted: resentment or gratitude. Henri Nouwen said that resentment makes us the passive victim of random incidents and happenstance, whereas the movement to gratitude is an invitation to see life from a different perspective. When we choose gratitude, Nouwen writes “Life is no longer a series of interruptions to my schedule and plans, but rather the patient and purposeful way by which God forms and leads me day by day” (Spiritual Formation, p. 66). Not only that, research shows that “mindfully expressing gratitude can make people healthier, more focused, and just plain happier”. Simply put, gratitude builds resilience.
The movement to gratitude is an invitation to see life from a different perspective.
I choose gratitude. I am familiar enough with the miasma of moodiness (which senses that disappointment has created an opportunity for an easy transaction) to know that its offers are no more sincere than the telemarketer who tells me that my name has been randomly selected for a free stay in a luxury hotel. My response to resentment needs to be just as swift and sure: “Sorry, not interested” (and then hang up). My running year is not going as planned, but truly, what do I have to complain about? I am more privileged than 99.9% of the world’s population. This momentary affliction will pass, and then I’ll be lacing up my running shoes again.
