DEALING WITH INJURY (MENTALLY)

I HATE BEING INJURED!!! It's worse than finding a half a worm in your apple. It's worse than finding out Darth Vader is your father. It's worse than finding out your neighbor is a Scientologist. It's worse than finding out the truth about Santa. Alright, maybe it's not as bad as the Santa thing, but still, I HATE BEING INJURED!!!

After several days of whining and complaining, I have come to terms with my calf injury. I am facing the fact that I may not be able to run for one to three weeks. I need to accept this and embrace this and take responsibility for it. If I don't, I may drive my wife crazy. She will tell you that I am not myself when I'm injured. I get a little . . . on edge. You know are not yourself when you set up an IV drip directly from your coffee machine.

Here's my advice for mentally dealing with injury: Don't focus on the temporary loss of running. Focusing on the negative will only drive you further toward the dark side. Understand that running is not as important as it appears to be. In fact, running is way down the list when you consider the truly important things in life--family, friends, health, peace, freedom, big screen TVs, and the list goes on.

Instead of seeing your injury as a loss, embrace it as a challenge, an opportunity to learn what to do to bring swift healing and how to prevent the same injury from happening again. In all probability the injury occurred because you were overdoing it--too much training or racing finally caught up with. Listen to your body and take the time to help it heal.

This past Saturday I watched the high school regional cross country meet at Pickering near Columbus, Ohio. One of our runners had a bad day. She didn't qualify for the state championship. It's hard to console a high school gal who didn't quite achieve a personal goal. All I could say was, "Don't take it too hard, kiddo, there will be more races."

That same advice I give to you and to myself. There will be more runs and more races. Keep pressing on.

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