Right now a love of running is still a distant memory for me. After a year where I fractured my shin (twice) and faced many other medical misfortunes, my love of running is still a bit dead. Who would love something that hurts them, right? But every day that I go out and work on returning to the sport I loved, something stirs inside me. Something I can’t quite explain comes back to life, even though just slightly, that felt like it died over a year ago.
I have run cross-country since I was a freshman in high school. During this time, running became something I defined myself by and something I honestly felt addicted to. To some this was a good thing, and to some this was a bad thing, but for me, at the time, it was my life. I went on to continue to run in college, where I made myself feel immense pressure to perform and improve, and I did. Every meet of my freshman year of college I improved and got faster and stronger. I quickly became addicted to getting personal records and working insanely hard to perform well at practice, and I loved it. Or I loved the idea of it anyway. At the end of cross country season I suffered from a fracture in my lower tibia that came about due to the fact that I couldn’t feel the shin splints in my lower right leg because of decreased sensation on that side of my body (a side effect of an illness I was diagnosed with in high school that was progressively getting worse). When I discovered my injury was a fracture (and I was in a boot for three months), I suffered a bit of an identity crisis. I had put so much pressure on myself to perform well and defined myself by my race times, so it caused me to not know who I truly was anymore.
During this time I also suffered from many issues do to the illness I mentioned earlier. It was a tough time, but in March I could finally start running again and find myself again. About eight weeks after I began training again, I suffered another fracture to the same shin. A fracture that would put me out of running all summer so I couldn’t train for my next season. A fracture that caused my doctors to encourage me to quit running and find a new sport. A fracture that made me resent running and made me almost quite doing what I love. I was mad for a while about it. I never wanted to run again for a while. It was hard. But I learned something from the entire situation. I learned my worth is not in a personal record or my ability to run 10 miles; my worth is found in God the father. This realization is what encouraged me to start training again, and start training the right way and listening to my body. I still resent running many 6 a.m. mornings when I go for my run. I’m slower than I want to be. I’m not as strong as I want to be, but I know these things don’t define me anymore. Instead, I feel blessed that God is giving me the ability to run. I feel blessed that He is still allowing me to put one foot in front of the other and feel the pain and joy running brings. I know there will come a day when I can’t run anymore, so I’ve decided to get every ounce of joy out of it while I can. So as I come back to the sport I loved, I slowly feel the joy inside me that I thought died come back to life. I feel God guiding me and using the ability he has continued to bless me with (even though I struggle to run) to glorify him and show his strength through me. So I’m going back to the sport I love, and I feel no regrets, just the love and mercy of my father.
