Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 131, June 2020 June 2020 | Page 45

TRAIL RUNNING
Happy place, Suther Peak,
13 Peaks Challenge
After almost a further month of no running, with
persistent pain when I did try to run, I reluctantly
visited a physiotherapist. I expected immediate
answers as to what this nonsense was keeping me
from running, and I demanded a quick fix. First, I
was told that it was a minor muscle strain. Another
week later, with still no improvement, I was referred
to a second physiotherapist, Jacqui, who happens to
also be an avid trail runner. Within five minutes of the
consultation, she suggested (with confidence) that
I have a femoral neck stress fracture. I stubbornly
insisted that she was incorrect, and chose to be
believe physio #1’s less daunting diagnosis instead.
I told Jacqui about 13 Peaks, and all my back-toback
races that followed, with the drastic build-up
in training and non-existent rest and recovery in
between. An epiphany struck: “Oh! Right. I really did
overdo it!” I finally accepted my inevitable fate (and
a pair of crutches), but I still proceeded to sulk for a
week, repeating “you did this to yourself, you idiot.”
Because no gym session, no SCUBA dive, no pool
swim, not even a bottle of wine, was able to give me
that same rush, the same high, that I got from running.
Lesson #16: Face what you’ve been
running from
I’ve always been aware of my high dependency on
exercise for my mental stability, physical wellbeing,
inner peace and outward appearance. However, it had
recently become a distraction, too. In some ways,
a healthy distraction, limiting my impressive ability
to overthink and create problems that do not exist,
but now I found that I was ignoring and avoiding real
problems that did exist, and that needed intervention.
When I could no longer run, I realised that I needed
to take action and shift my focus to building my
career, reassessing relationships and reinvesting
in friendships, rather than being so consumed and
overwhelmed by things that I could not control.
Lesson #17: Reassess and
rediscover what you run for
Running has always been an opportunity for me
to think – when I need to process my emotions.
Sometimes it is an opportunity to not think – when I
need to settle overwhelming emotions. My excuse?
I don’t have one, so let’s go ahead and blame
astrology, and the curse of being a Scorpio…
I do everything with irrepressible intensity and
formidable emotion. All heart, no brain. It is incredibly
inconvenient. But running has often helped me to
balance my feelings with logic, and find realistic
approaches to navigate through life’s challenges.
I also run so that I can eat. Until now, I have been too
ashamed to admit or acknowledge that I have a bit
of an unhealthy relationship with food. I eat healthy
on most days, but I also go on ravenous binging
sprees, eating chocolates, cakes and the occasional
equivalent of a small village.
I then proceed to punish myself by running absurd
distances, while being sustained by a small apple, in
attempts to undo the damage inflicted by the binge.
Then, because I ran, I feel it is acceptable to devour an
entire jar of peanut butter, and the assorted contents of
a fully stocked fridge. Once the guilt kicks in again, and
the associated bloat is released, my running shoes go
on, and so the vicious cycle continues…
I had been overeating, over-training, over-working,
and it was simply too much of everything. My body
‘Therapy’ in the Cape
Town PEACE Trail
Broken after the
Table Mountain
Challenge
was exhausted from trying to process it all, and my
mind was leading the way to its destruction. Running
has many obvious benefits, but it can become a
dangerous vice, an addiction, where you may not
even realise that it is hurting you. You are only
unstoppable until something inevitably stops you.
I realised I was running more for punishment, than for
passion. More for recognition, than for self-respect.
More for acknowledgement, than for self-confidence.
More for chocolate, than for the structural integrity
of my skeleton. My body’s response was inevitable:
“Here is a serious injury so you can just STOP!” So,
without running as a ‘crutch,’ I had to use an actual
set of crutches, and my brain (for a change), to
navigate life’s challenges while my body took a welldeserved,
compulsory sabbatical.
Lesson #18: Make the most of it
One of the many discombobulating things about this
injury, is that the pain never truly reflected the severity.
I could walk just fine. Yes, after a while it would feel
uncomfortable, but as long as no running or jumping
was involved, it was tolerable. Still, I was told to use
the crutches for three to four weeks, as partial weightbearing
supports. I did so for about a week, and
then it was time to board a plane for a long-awaited
holiday to Asia. Crutches are great for jumping queues
in airports and priority boarding onto airplanes, but
highly inconvenient for, well, everything else.
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Hội An, Vietnam