When you have been running for awhile, eventually you would suffer some sort of injury. It could be the knee, iliotibial band, hamstring, piriformis, calf, ankle, tibial tendon, Achilles tendon, plantar fasciitis, heel spur or Morton’s neuroma. In the past, whenever an injury struck, I would deal with it with what I considered the “Zen of Pain”. This is how I describe it: Be one with the pain. This means that while I’m running, if I accept pain and become one with it, I will eventually not be in pain anymore, and I can continue running painlessly. Of course the endorphins had a lot to do with that. Eventually the body heals itself and the injury disappears. Well that used to work very well when I was younger and was able to heal faster. Being able to deal with injuries that way was what enabled me to run every day for more than 21 years despite being biomechanically inefficient. The pain I have now is not the kind that disappears no matter how much I try to become one with it. It just gets worst the longer I run. So what happened then? Age caught up with the inefficiencies of my natural stride. This is something I am learning to accept and unfortunately never to Zen forevermore.
2 comments:
I could really relate to this particular post. As a lifelong asthmatic I have had to just accept it sometimes and wait for the bad spell to pass. Sometimes mind over matter works, but sometimes it's just better to rest and see what tomorrow brings. I suppose age eventually teaches you to know the difference.
I hear you Linda.
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