Our love started in the spring of 2003. It was a hot flame that burned fast and bright. It’s all I could talk about, the relationship consumed me and my life revolved around it. I kept wanting more from the relationship and kept pushing for it to go further. Every decision that I made was designed to keep this relationship strong; what I ate, when I went to sleep, my weekend plans, what I spent my money on, and eventually even my career. I would drive at ungodly hours to meet up with strangers that I met online. I was changing my clothes in public restrooms. Friends who didn’t want any part of it, fell by the wayside. I started hanging out with completely different people. My family couldn’t understand why I was obsessed, but for me it was crystal clear. I was completely infatuated and in love. This relationship became my identity, it’s who I was. Even now, after the break-up, I’m still holding on to feelings. I still hold hope that we can reunite one day.
It was a bad break up, I was in denial and I cried a lot. I didn’t want it to be over, I wanted to keep hanging on even though it was broken. It was not my choice to end things. For over a year I would google search to find ways to repair it. I started going to therapy, but even repeated intense therapy sessions made it seem like things would get better, but then we’d fall right back into a physically damaging pattern. Eventually, I had to accept that it was over, for my own health I had to stop. I had to end my relationship with running.
Did that seem a bit too dramatic? Honestly, it’s the only way I can describe how it has been feeling for me to stop running. Ending a 15 year relationship hurts and it takes a long time to get over.
An injury caused this break up. For the last year and half I’ve been struggling with plantar fasciitis. In the beginning, I reduced my daily and weekly miles, and only ran the events in which I was already registered. Then, I went to my favorite running store, Running Etc., where I obtained replacement shoes and tons of advice. Armed with ideas, I began sleeping with a boot along with foam rolling, and stick rolling, and frozen water bottle rolling. As the months went by and the pain got worse, I started to add massage therapy, trigger point therapy, and yoga to my arsenal. Still, the pain kept getting worse, so I reluctantly stopped all running. My doctor recommended all of the things that I was already doing along with adding anti-inflammatory supplements and compressions. Combining all of these tools together started to offer some relief.
There seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel, until this summer when I re-injured myself right before I was about to travel outside of the country. As I was enjoying the morning surfing at the First Street jetty with some friends, I caught a few tiny waves, then after riding a low wave, I stepped off the board and landed hard on my injured foot. The pain shot up my entire body until I felt it in my teeth. I spent the next two days navigating airports on crutches and in a wheel chair. After that, it was no longer just my foot and leg that hurt. My whole body hurt, and it continued to hurt for months. More about this later.
Overlapping the decline of my running, I discovered November Project Virginia Beach. Early on when I was in the reduce running phase of this injury, I went to check out a group that my friend Jillian kept posting about on social media. Really, I showed up to see my friend. I was already reducing my running, so it made no sense for me to adopt another run group. What I didn’t know, was that I didn’t just reunite with my buddy Jill, I gained a swarm of positive and supportive friends that I now consider my family, and this wasn’t just another run group. The energy and encouragement of this group is pure magic. For me, being in this positive environment reignited the idea that I could again be in love with fitness, even if it’s not all just running. I started showing up every Wed and Fri for the fun dynamic workouts. Sometimes, I would run a little, you know, because of that infatuation that you read about earlier, but mostly I would do the work out parts and walk during the running parts.
The reawakening of loving fitness helped me to search out to avenues other than running that I could enjoy. Maybe I can love again! These past two years I’ve adopted cycling, swimming (shout out to November Project Swim Team), practicing yoga, and of course more November Project. For this, I’m extremely grateful. Last summer I took swimming lessons for the first time in my life, now I eagerly await Swim Team Season Three. I’ve participated in an 80 mile, very hilly, bike ride through Lancaster where I chatted with Floyd Landis. I’ve discovered the power in simple yoga practices like doing a headstand every day to remind myself that there’s more than one way to see things. When running stopped, November Project helped to keep my world open to enjoying fitness.
For the most part I did a really good job of taking care of myself physically and mentally as I navigated this long recovery process. Again, I know it sounds dramatic, but I missed running so much that I had to force myself into relationships with other activities to keep myself happy. In the end, it’s all for the better, but the journey was challenging.
If you are an active member of November Project Virginia Beach, perhaps you’ve notice that in the past two weeks I’ve started to run again. I’m taking it slow. Very slow. I’m putting all my focus on simply enjoying that I’m able to run pain free, and I’m forcing myself to only run a small amount at a time. I’m following a plan and it’s keeping me pain free for the first time in over a year. My heart is singing and I want to run 100 miles this weekend, but my brain knows that I need to take it slow and rejoice in the quarter mile trots that I’m doing. Maybe one day I can go for a long run again, but I also need to be okay with where I am right now and I need to be okay with the fact that I may never be the runner I used to be. That’s okay.
Recovery Deck shouldn’t suck!
Here’s some stuff that I learned during this process. This part may be hard to hear for some, but I think it’s important to put this out there.
People on recovery deck aren’t lazy! They are recovering, or tapering, or having a bad morning, or pacing themselves, or in need of a porta-potty. Don’t judge them. If they were lazy or unmotivated, they wouldn’t have prepared their stuff last night and gotten out of bed at 4am to bounce in a circle on a landfill.
Throughout the decline and then recovery with this injury, it was sometimes very difficult to just show up at a workout. I totally wanted to see my friends and work out and soak up all of those NP vibes, but it was just very difficult to watch people run when I knew that I shouldn’t run. Sometimes, I would avoid NP because it was hard to show up while injured, but that always left with me with major FOMO that was far worse, so that didn’t happen often.
There were a few times that I was encouraged or coached by well-meaning tribe members to run faster, sprint the stairs quicker, jump higher, or not take a walk break. Damn, I wish I knew you when I was running all the time! I get it, we are encouraging each other, but it wasn’t my motivation to do these things that was broken, trust me, my heart is all in! Even though you didn’t see crutches or stitches or a cast, I’ve been recovering from an actual injury. Even if I didn’t post an Instagram story of me receiving painful trigger point therapy treatments, I was still in pain. When I was cheered on with ‘come on you can do better’, I understood the intention was pure, but it wasn’t helpful. That’s why I often shy away from partnering up, or I select a friend who is also on recovery deck.
Let’s work together to make sure that recovery deck doesn’t suck.
If you know that someone has stopped showing up because of injury, please reach out to them. They miss you and need you to help them see that recovery doesn’t need to suck. Bring them back and let them work the recovery deck as they need to. Remind them that they don’t need to be 100% to be awesome. You can rock a solid 80% and still be amazing!
Be aware that someone else’s goals may be different than yours. Most of us are great at identifying that someone is aiming for a sub 2 hour half marathon, or training for their first endurance event. We are great at encourage them in those goals. What we don’t seem to be good at is knowing how to be encouraging to those of us who are on the recovery deck. Maybe it’s uncomfortable. Maybe we just don’t know how to help. I don’t have all of the answers, but keep in mind, that for an injured athlete, it’s very uncomfortable and difficult to just show up when we can’t be 100%. People on recovery deck need encouragement too, just remember to encourage everyone in a way that doesn’t put your standards on them.
Try some of these:
I’m glad you’re here!
Good job!
Nice modification!
Fuck yeah!
Sweet down dog ; )
Uuuuumm…. Maybe not that last one.
If you’ve experienced rocking the recovery deck, please offer your inputs as to how we can, as a tribe, encourage you in a way that is actually helpful. Just please, don’t stop showing up to the workouts. We would miss you.
Thank you for all of the great NP vibes and all of the encouragements. I’m glad you’re here.
Today, my goal is to remain injury free and to keep my love of fitness burning.
Dolo
Awesome Dolo! So glad you’re here! Thanks for sharing your experience and letting us know how to support ALL of our NP friends at all of their different fitness levels.
Great read Dolo! Thank you for sharing your awesome story! ❤️ It’s so important to open each other’s minds 🤗