My running has been strong so far in 2021. I have been putting in the time on feet and mileage to build the base from which I can focus my training for races later in the year.

Sometimes everything is going right, until it isn’t.

As runners, we are used to the injuries that cause the unscheduled setbacks: training for a marathon and developing a stress injury or twisting an ankle on a trail run. Last October, on a trail, I caught a root or a rut and fell quickly and slammed the ground. I was healthy and fit, and then I was sore and needed some time off. Those are the sort of unplanned incidents that disrupt our running, sometimes for a few days and sometimes for longer.

This week I found myself in the situation to anticipate and, essentially, to schedule a setback. During a medical appointment on Tuesday, I learned the minor surgery I need soon (I’ll be fine, and I’m not going to give TMI here) will require a painful and prolonged recovery period that includes, at minimum, three to four weeks of no running and even a week of very little walking. The health issue is only marginally connected to running but surely exacerbated by running, but I left the surgeon’s office as upset about knowing that this year’s training, so far, will essentially be lost (catastrophic thinking) as I was about knowing I’ll be opened up and stitched back together. Honestly, in the moment, I was more upset about knowing I will have weeks of not being able to run. I’m not the only one who thinks this way, am I? Yet, I know I need the surgery, and I prefer to do it as soon as I can make it fit my academic schedule to get it out of the way and to be healthy.

Something about this feels different, as essentially I can plan when I won’t be able to run. And then I have to think now about three, four, or more weeks of not running or of being able to do much by way of physical activity. Movement is my medicine. It’s the best part of the day. For the last couple days, I’ve been dwelling on the time off running, so I have to shift my thinking to questions about how to use this time: how can we use time off to become better runners and better people?

I know three to four weeks is not that much time. I know I will lose fitness. I know I will get it back.

In February 2014, while playing on a faculty/staff intramural basketball team against a team of students and while down nearly 30 points, I decided the game wasn’t over yet (it was), dove for a loose ball, and had another player land on the back of my leg and drive my knee into the floor. It didn’t feel right, but I’ve always been the sort of person who can fall hard, get back up, and continue going. On my next cut, my knee partially dislocated and I went to the floor, unable to put weight on it. Think Derrick Rose, Game 1, April 28, 2012. Subtract nearly all of the basketball skills. You’ll have the idea.

The next day, with the strong quadriceps of a distance runner, I could walk on it, though I couldn’t bend my knee. The first specialist I saw said he watched me walk in from the waiting room and that I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I tore something other than perhaps my meniscus. I told him I felt a pop. He reluctantly agreed to order an MRI. The MRI revealed a completely torn posterior cruciate ligament. He then referred me to another physician in his practice who had more experience with torn PCLs, typically the least torn of the knee ligaments.

I expected to have surgery and be out for a year. However, the surgeon said ACL surgery was like an art and PCL surgery was to do everything possible not to hit an artery and kill someone and that he preferred not to do the surgery and, instead, to order physical therapy to help the torn ligament scar in. I would just have to give up sports that required too much cutting. And it would be at least four months before I could run again.

In retelling this story, I think I’m reminding myself as much as I’m convincing you that three to four weeks is nothing. I will be running again this May or June. And unlike last time, I won’t have to teach myself to run again. My initial runs in 2014 were in the grass, because at times I’d lose some feeling in my leg, take a bad step, and fall. Sometimes I’d fall three or four times in a single run. Sometimes my knee would get so stiff I couldn’t run anymore.

Seven years later and seven years after having all the anxiety that I would never run again, I run technical trails regularly, move side to side, jump creeks, get over rocks and roots, and never think about whether my knee will handle the terrain. And I am probably a more disciplined and stronger runner.

In The Brave Athlete: Calm the F⭑ck Down and Rise to the Occasion, Simon Marshall, PhD, and Lesley Paterson describe the importance of “creating an upward spiral of positive emotion.” For injuries or setbacks, such as a surgery that takes time to heal appropriately to avoid complications, the important thing is to focus on the positive, something I’m not naturally good at (classic academic disposition?), and to be grateful. Marshall and Paterson explain, “there’s compelling scientific evidence that the best way to dig yourself out of a lingering negative mood is to force yourself to be positive. That’s right, even when the last thing you feel like is being positive, simply faking it can trick your brain’s neurochemistry into believing things are better than they are.”

So that’s where I’m at. I’m telling myself that the time off will be good for the rest of my body, that I can come back and focus on strength and imbalances, and that I’ll be happier and healthier holistically after this time off. And although it doesn’t feel like it, it’s most likely true. And I say this knowing that at some point and any moment, we can all face the setback from which we won’t come back.

I will never be as fast as I was as a high school runner, at least in shorter distances, but after that 2014 PCL tear, I came back as a more disciplined, stronger, and healthier runner. And at 40, I’m running farther and as fast as I was at 30.

If you currently have a setback, what is it?

How do you cope?

From what will you come back stronger?

What did you do with your time?

To me, this is the other part of my time off to think about. To some extent, I get to schedule when my setback occurs (sooner rather than later, I hope), but I also get to schedule how I use it. What will I read about? What will I plan? Stay tuned, as I am sure this will be the content of one of my newsletters during my hiatus.

Inspiration of the Week

Since I’m writing about time off from running this week, I want to highlight another sort of (sometimes) scheduled break from running: pregnancy and postpartum time off from running. On March 13, US Olympic Trials marathon winner Aliphine Tuliamuk shared on Instagram about being glad she waited eight weeks after giving birth to start running. And this week Hoka athletes Stephanie Bruce, Kellyn Taylor, Aliphne Tulimuk, Sabrina Little, Mirinda Carfrae, and Verna Volker did an Instagram live discussion on returning to training postpartum. What they shared could be useful to expecting mothers thinking about their return to running after giving birth and to coaches, especially male coaches, of women.

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