Missing the high: One year without running
My left hip has been bothering me a lot lately, so I may take four or five days off before I run again.
That is the last sentence I wrote in my running journal. I was writing about my run on November 27, 2017. It was a pleasant, uneventful run of 34 minutes and 19 seconds, but I decided afterward to rest for a few days and correct whatever was wrong with my left hip.
I have not run since.
It’s been over one year since my last run. Those four or five days I mentioned in my running journal turned into a month of managing excruciating pain, two or three months of physical therapy, and twice-daily stretching ever since to stay loose and symptom free. It was a long road to recovery, but even though my hip issue faded before spring, I have not returned to running.
Running was a big part of my life for over a decade—albeit off and on at times—so life without it has been weird. It contributed to my physical and mental health, providing both aerobic exercise and meditation. It burned calories and calmed me. The high it produced provided much-needed inner peace after long workdays of emails, recordkeeping, and proofreading. It got me out of the house and into nature. But I have been without those benefits for over a year—and it has sucked! I love walking and cycling, and both offer many of the same advantages as running, especially time outdoors and lots of vitamin D. But neither can produce the same high or meditative state, the deep focus and relaxation, I felt when running. (Stretching, though, is quite meditative.)
When I was unable to walk, sit, or lie without pain, when the wrong movement sent intense pain shooting up my hip, I swore to never run again. I admitted that running was the root of the super tight muscles, tilted pelvis, and crushed nerves—or that it was at least a major factor. It was easy to accept that my running days were numbered when I was crippled by severe pain, but as the months passed, the pain faded, and my muscles loosened, I felt the urge to run again. I was envious of the runners who passed me while walking through Hickory Hill. However, despite my desire to lace up my Brooks and pound the pavement again, I promised myself that I would not run in 2018, promised to dedicate this year to strengthening and stretching. I’ve kept that promise.
However, 2019 will be a different story: I plan to start running sometime after I put up a new wall calendar in January.
Am I ready? I think I am. I’m much more flexible than I have ever been before. My hamstrings are the final frontier of flexibility, and I’ve loosened them a lot. (I think a super tight left hamstring was the cause of all my problems.) During physical therapy, my PT always asked me to bend at the waist and try to touch my toes. I could not even reach my knees when I started therapy, a sign that my muscles were super tight. Though I was unable to touch my toes by the time I stopped therapy, I can touch them now.
When will I run? Not when the sidewalks and trails are covered by snow and ice. Screw that! I ran through many winters and along many treacherous stretches of sidewalk in the past, and I was lucky enough to never fall, but I don’t feel like risking it, especially after fracturing my forearm in September. I want to restart with the 13-week run-walk program, starting on level ground. If the track at Bates Field is clear, I could start there. Treadmills are a possibility, but then I would have to join a gym. I’ve run on treadmills before, and they’re a welcome option when the weather is uncooperative, but it is hell transitioning from a treadmill to running outdoors.
Whenever I do start running again, I will be very leery. The pain I felt last year, and during my first hip issue, was transformative; it redefined what pain feels like for me. Fracturing my arm hurt, and it sucked because my motion was very limited, but it was not painful. My goal when I start running again will be to do it without wrecking myself in the process.
