Injury.

Why not? It is winter after all.

My body has a way of taking all of the hard work from the Spring and Summer and switching the reset come Winter. Back to zero. Start again.

I like my body though. It doesn’t fuck about. It won’t do things by half. If I’m going to get injured it won’t just be for a week or two. Last time round I was out for going on 3 months with a torn calf.

This time it’s a cuboid displacement / stress reaction. I came on over the course of a 60′ run. Hero to zero. That was back in November, seven weeks ago today.

I went through the stages of grief (see the selfies below that I took to document the process)…

I spent a lot of time in ‘anger’ and ‘depression’; I still drop-in on them every now and then. ‘Denial’ never really cut the mustard as I knew straight away that it was pretty serious in how it felt. Likewise ‘bargaining’ was short-lived; what was I going to offer the gods of running?! I’ve kinda ‘accepted’ it now…..for the shit-show that it is (whoops…anger).

I did the whole Dr. Google thing, stressing about plantar fasciitis for a little bit, then a broken bone for a bit, before finally settling on a cuboid stress reaction following a not inexpensive trip to the MRI clinic.

Not really sure how it happened. Maybe a previous knock that never settled fully. Maybe over-did the road miles in lower drop shoes than usual (adopted as a result of a niggly knee injury prior to the foot thing). Maybe diet. Maybe because I’m a virgo and the moon was in Jupiter at the time.

Yeah, probably that one.

Lots of awesome websites, magazines and other publications out there will have these well-meaning articles and advice columns about how to cope with injury. They’ll tell you how it’s important to cross-train (it is), how it’s great because you’ll “come back supercharged” (whatever the fuck that means), (Oxford comma – Rees-Mogg inspired) and how it’s a great opportunity to “value every run and make every day count” (because by their definition no-one ever did that in the first place). Essentially, it’s bull shit (apart from the cross-train one – that helps…a bit).

So rather than dwell on the injury side of things, I’m going to document the supercharged ‘comeback’ of me, aged 34 and a half. It’s Friday morning here in Turkey and, as I said, seven weeks since I ran a single step. I’m due to try my first run on Sunday when we get back to the UK.

A full 15′ – if I can manage it – followed by two days off to monitor the after-effects.

I’ll add some notes on how it goes and how it is until I’m ‘back’. It’ll be no bullshit, no feel good shite that sells glossy paper, just as honest as I can make it. If I come across arrogant or ungrateful, well that’s just how it is in those moments, so apologies if it offends you (not that ‘offence’ means anything anyway by the way).

Speak soon mein kinder.