Earthmovers and Sandcastles

…is that it’s much harder coming from a very physically active lifestyle than from a more sedentary one. Not the healing part, mind you, but psychologically.

…is that, in the scenario mentioned, you feel like you’ve surely gained 275,235 pounds within the first few days of being unable to maintain your previous level of activity, and you have nightmares that this is the way it will be forever.

…is that endorphin withdrawal is a bad, bad, hairy, scary thing.

…is that you find yourself really tempted to “cheat” with the cross-training and look for the hills and other things that might help ramp up the difficulty level and gain you those endorphins you miss.

…is that you run a very serious risk of developing a secondary addiction to your cross-training activity, and that can cause another injury - to your wallet.

…is that it can make your butt hurt (from sitting, from biking, from feeling like life is just doing some pretty unseemly things to you that you probably shouldn’t discuss on a family blog).

…is that it can be difficult to tread the line between trying to keep motivated to stay the course with running (or whatever else you happen to be missing like crazy) and making yourself absolutely depressed by reading or hearing about other people’s running successes. But you won’t be able to stop reading or listening, so don’t even try.

…is that the level of guilt you can make yourself feel is incredible: guilt for not running; guilt for possibly having pushed yourself too hard and earned the injury; guilt for the frustration that you’re taking out on those around you; guilt for feeling guilty when, on the grand scale, this is a pretty minor “tragedy” (but it’s my tragedy, darn it)…

…is that, even at your lowest, you can still crack a smile when your three-year-old calls the boot your “robot leg” and gives you a spontaneous and unexpected, “Mommy, you’re pretty.”

…is that it’s temporary, and I need to be reminded of that at every possible moment. I’m 32. This is for a few weeks. I will not end my running career this way. I have many, many miles of running ahead of me, and when I get back on my feet, it may take as little as seven gentle weeks to get back up to an hour of running. And I’ll have gained cycling endurance in the meantime, which can only help my general level of fitness. It will be okay. Please keep telling me that?

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