A little over a week ago, I misstepped on a trail run and dislocated my kneecap. It stayed out of place for around two hours, and (once it was finally put back in place at the ER) for the next five days, I barely moved. At all.
But then, slowly, some of the mobility came back. I got clearance to cross train as much as is comfortable while we wait for the next step. For the past few days, I’ve been able to do short efforts on the stationary bike and in the pool.
Ten days ago, that would have been devastating. It obviously is still pretty hard to deal with – it’s never fun to be injured and forgoing running, but on top of that, I had big goals for the summer. Hike at least one (preferably two) 14ers. Run the trails I miss when I’m in Sioux Falls. Bike 50 miles.
I seemed well on my way to checking at least some of those things off my summer bucket list when . . . yeah, my knee happened.
And as with any injury, it can be incredibly easy to fall into a place of sadness and apathy, especially when the path to recovery isn’t exactly clear. How are you supposed to motivate yourself when you don’t know what you’re motivating yourself for – is it something soon? Or months down the road?
Plus, injuries take away a lot of your options. I obviously can’t run right now, and as I detailed above, cross training has recently been more about gaining mobility than gaining fitness. And as someone who loves cross training even when I am healthy, the difficulty of an injury is compounded by feeling like that cross training is limited.
It all seems a bit . . . hopeless.
That’s where the little wins come in. Instead of feeling down that all I can do barely amounts to anything, I’m practicing celebrating the small wins – because five days ago, any amount of exercise was pretty much off the table. And slowly being able to add resistance to my short rides has brought a lot of joy – way more than anything that “little” would have brought two weeks ago.
Not only is celebrating these small steps and victories important, so is expressing gratitude that they’ve occurred. In my experience, thankfulness is a great way to mentally and emotionally reset and move out of the apathetic stage of an injury.
So here it goes: It may be hard and not exactly what I had envisioned for myself this summer, but I am so thankful for my recent recovery, however small it may seem now. I am grateful that my body is allowing me some sort of of exercise again. And I will take any form of that it will give me.
Even if it barely feels like anything.
Have you been thankful for anything (big or small) recently? If so, drop it in the comments, and we can be thankful together!
CALLIN NADDY 