I’m ready to share a secret.

I’ve been letting a running injury consume my life for four years. Yes, I posted about it now and then on social media. But most of the time I didn’t tell anyone how I really was. How hard it really was. How much time I spent mentally and physically tearing my body apart, agonizing over lost progress, and mourning how good I “could have been”.

My family and some friends knew I wasn’t running because I was hurt, but they didn’t know how much money I was spending on treatments. And doctors, and therapy, and supplements. Or that I’d developed an eating disorder and would stop eating because I was terrified of gaining weight. No one else knew that I didn’t get a real period for over a year because I was so afraid of losing progress that I forced my body into exhaustion and overtraining.

You don’t have to be a professional athlete to feel destroyed by an injury.

The maintenance part of being active is something that so many people neglect. After all, doing strength work on a yoga ball after a run is not the most exciting way to spend 20 minutes.

In 2016 I was having the best running year of my life.

I finished the season with a 5k PR where I broke 21 minutes and was set up to have a great season in the spring.

That winter the pain started in my right knee. It started out as a pinch-y pain that would go away, and grew to be all-encompassing. Some mornings it was so bad that I couldn’t walk down the stairs. 

Like a good runner, I ignored it. I popped IBuprofen, iced, and wore compression socks. Finally I went to a massage therapist who very kindly told the issue was mechanical and not muscular. Time off and work on my running form would help.

Time off. I didn’t have TIME for that.

I listened, but changed very little about my routine. Nothing changed as you might imagine, and eventually the pain became so great that I had to stop completely. In a very short amount of time I went from the proudest I’d ever felt of myself, to rock bottom. It was a profound feeling of loss that I felt every single day.

This whole thing started because running made me feel like an athlete, and for the first in my life I felt like I had real, natural talent.

So in hopes to find a solution, I sought the help of a physical therapist specializing in running injuries.

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There is a lot I want to say about how frustratingly unhelpful PT was. However, I realize my experience is personal. I don’t want my negative experience to prevent someone from considering something that could help them.

For the sake of transparency: I saw three PTs and a sports orthopedic. I got x-rays, an MRI, a lot of therapeutic treatments, and three Euflexxa shots. Nothing worked and I was discouraged from seeking other treatment options. Please understand that there is a lot more to this chapter of my journey, but the point is that I gave all these things an honest go. I really did.

Some advice: you shouldn’t be in PT for over a year without seeing progress. That’s not normal. 

When Christmas rolled around, and I got a bike and trainer. Going for virtual rides on Zwift became my new routine. However much like switching to the sugar-free version of your favorite dessert. It’s good, but not the same.

As much as I enjoyed it, I didn’t want to switch sports and I didn’t want to be a cyclist. I’m much too afraid to commit to clip ons and I bruise way too easily to be able to walk off road rash.

Eventually when I did run again, I found that the time off had helped. I did a lot of starting and stopping from 2017-2018, running when I felt ok and stopping because of the pain. In fall 2019 Mike convinced me to do a solo duathlon. I wanted to compete, but I didn’t want to race if I wasn’t going to be fast.

I finished second overall female, out-sprinted by a second.

Nothing about it was painless (my knee hurt considerably) but dammit, I think it convinced me that I wasn’t irreparably broken.

Fast forward a couple weeks to my sister’s bachelorette party, mid discussion about laser hair removal and babies. I was recommended a chiropractor. At 11 PM on a Saturday after a couple glasses of wine, I requested an appointment.

Back home, Mike was not amused. He’d been there to pick me up when I was defeated by all the other attempts and was not enthusiastic about trying another doctor.

I was optimistic but skeptical sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment. Dr. Alyssa Hickey treats a lot of moms and babies, and I felt self-conscious. A running injury was so different than being pregnant! My nerves eased when I realized everything about her was different. She was open and honest, and explained everything she did and why she was doing it.

After the very first adjustment I felt different. So I continued to see her. 

And then my other knee started to hurt.

Despite everything, I really do believe things happen when they are meant to happen. I was really and truly convinced that this was my sign to stop. The voices crept in and told me “this is it, this is God telling me to stop.”

In my mind, I was already thinking about what my next sport would be, and that cycling wasn’t THAT bad. Alyssa was sympathetic, she listened, and she never said “I’m not sure”. This was already a stark contrast to PT, where I heard “I’m not sure” on a daily basis! Never once did she indicate that all her cards had been played. In fact every time I came in, she was positive and full of ideas. 

Then something clicked. 

During one session told her that during a run, the pain lessened if I leaned forward. She said that made sense with the work we were doing on my pelvis. My hips were very tight. We had talked in the beginning of my appointments about how I hold stress in my pelvis. Her suggestion was to focus on getting the tension out of my pelvis – CONSCIOUSLY relax and stretch my hip muscles.

The change was immediate.

All this time has taught me to not believe in any fix that happens quickly, but as weeks went by, the pain stayed away. Right now I’m running the most and furthest I’ve been able to do in 4 years.

I have spent many mornings asking myself if I regret losing four years to a running injury. I am bitter that I missed out on prime running years, and the mental struggle was something I wouldn’t want to endure again. However, if I hadn’t gotten injured so many GOOD things wouldn’t have happened.

• I’d never have come to love biking
• My running form would have stayed the same
• I wouldn’t have learned how to ease stress in my hips
• I’d never learned to appreciate being able to move pain-free

I’ve heard many people who have overcome adversity say “I succeeded because I didn’t give up”. I wish I could say that but in truth I gave up so many times. I just didn’t give up permanently. I’d give up for a day or a week, but inevitably I’d come back because without it, I feel less me.

I guess that means I love it, and maybe that’s the ultimate take away.