The Emotions of Injury: My Internal Dialogue

I think every runner knows the feeling. You’re running merrily along and all of a sudden you feel a zing of pain. It might be in your knee, ankle, shin, hip, whatever. You think, at first, huh, that’s weird. I’m sure that was an anomaly. Must have stepped wrong.

Then you continue on and the pain comes back, stronger. Nope, guess I just need a day with rest/foam-rolling/stretching.

You give it a day or two and the pain persists. You think, that’s okay, it’s a built-in rest week! No problem. I clearly needed it.

It doesn’t get better and you try to quell a rising sense of panic. Is it actually a real “injury?” The fear begins to settle in. What if it doesn’t get better by race day? Or later this summer? If you’re like me, your thoughts may catastrophically (and dramatically) spiral to what if I’m broken forever? Training was going SO WELL. I’ve been doing everything right! This isn’t fair!!!

Whoa there, boss, hang on a sec. Let’s unpack that hurricane of emotions.

Anger: How dare my body betray me? I’ve been religiously doing my physical therapy exercises to ensure I don’t get injured! I have a coach so I don’t do something stupid like overtrain, and it was going so well. I’m doing everything right!

Okay, that’s all fair. What did you do wrong? Likely nothing unless you tried to do a couch-to-100 miler in just a week (p.s. don’t do that.) Shit happens. It’s okay to throw a little tantrum.

Fear: What if it doesn’t get better? Will all of my race fees and training be a waste this year? Will I have to sit out every adventure this summer? When will I get to run again?

It WILL get better. At it’s own pace, unfortunately, but this is just a moment in your running journey over the course of your lifetime. We all miss races now and then, and of course it’s annoying. It’s no worse than the aspirational, maybe-will-fit-someday clothing you bought that you never wear, right? It’s unlikely you’ll miss every adventure, and maybe you can still support your friends if you can’t actively run the event. All hope is not lost, and you will run again.

Envy: Look at all of those people out running on the trails…I can’t express how MUCH I want to do that right now. It hurts to look at the photos and read race reports. I don’t begrudge them the fun out on the trails, but I’m SO jealous.

This is a very understandable feeling. Perhaps don’t torture yourself with longingly looking at Instagram photos? There isn’t an easy answer to this one (or if you have one, please tell me!) Getting hung up on the stuff you can’t do at the moment certainly isn’t helpful to your body or mind.

Despair: Who am I without running? Am I destined to become a miserable couch potato that can’t do stairs or hike or run?

You are not just one thing, I promise. You are a multi-faceted human being, and have value beyond how many miles you can run. (Seriously, what an arbitrary gauge for value that would be!) This is a great opportunity to spend some time on other things now that your spare hours aren’t full of training runs. Try some new recipes, meet up with friends, catch up on your reading, explore a new sport like yoga or swimming, draft a plan for world peace, take up underwater basket weaving, whatever. It’s easy to get caught up in our favorite hobbies that become our identity, but there are so many things out there to experience! Running will be there when you’re healed.

All of these feelings are completely understandable and typical of an injured runner. I’m currently going through these emotions myself right now after a two-week (and counting) hiatus due to an overly-involved TFL and angsty IT band in my left leg. The prognosis is good, but because I don’t know when I’ll be better, I still experience this cycle of emotions.

This isn’t my first rodeo, and I’ve dealt with two long-term (to me) injuries in the past two years. Luckily, both injuries were soft tissue and didn’t include any breaking of bones or tearing of cartilage. Both took five months to get over which can feel like a millennia to a runner! You would think after these two experiences I would be better equipped to handle the fear of a setback due to injury. NOPE. I re-read my posts from the first injury in 2016 and was surprised to find that I was experiencing the exact same feelings of anger, fear, envy, and despair. Nice to know I’m consistent in my reaction I suppose, but I’d prefer to bypass some of the mental misery of last time.

In a previous post I wrote about using injury as a learning opportunity. A second post was about realizing how important being out on the trails is to me. Lastly, I wrote about the three big lessons I had learned through the experience: patience, presence, and grit. These are all good lessons to be learned, but clearly ones I need to learn again.

The end of the post is where I’m supposed to have some sage advice on how to deal with all of the emotions and turmoil of an injury. Unfortunately, I don’t have THE answer (sorry), just this dialogue of an internal therapy session. But if this is your reality right now, like it is mine, know that you’re not alone. I’m lucky that I have a fantastic physical therapist, a great coach, and wonderful friends to help me cope. I know my injury “isn’t that bad,” but everyone’s road to recovery looks a bit different, so we need to let go of comparison and judgement of yourself and others. I know you know (intellectually) it will all be okay, but… it can be hard to believe sometimes. Anyway… I’m with you.

So… how do YOU deal with the emotions of being injured?