The Fight to Stay Fit

​I have not gone on a run since the middle of February, so it’s been almost five months. In those five months, I found out that I had a stress reaction in my shin, which is basically a step below a stress fracture. So for two months after I stopped running completely, I committed myself to the gym, and I was there for 15-17 hours a week, and I got so much stronger, and I was eating so much trying to put on muscle mass, so that the fruits of my labor were actually going somewhere, but then I came to another realization, that all of this lifting was also hindering the recovery of my shin. This was a very depressing discovery and one that I tried very hard to ignore, but if I wanted to get better, I had to face it. 

​This was pretty heart breaking, because although it could not make me feel the same as running, it made me feel a little better, and I could see the results of the work I was putting in, which is self-motivating. So I was at a loss. I had to try and find a way to exercise and also not put additional pressure on my leg, so that my shin could recover, hopefully. 

​It was around this time when I started to go to PT. They gave me some pretty basic exercises to do, and it was easy to replicate these exercises at home. Also on a normal day, I do an ab workout right when I get up. That usually lasted seven to nineminutes, and it was just a nice quick way to wake up and start the day, but now I needed more because the different types of exercise I could engage in were becoming limited, so I doubled the ab workouts, and I added a few different exercises to each, so that two sets would get me to 20 minutes of abs total. 

​On top of that, I had a list of glute exercises from running in college that I added to the workout. If I did each of them for one minute, I would have nine minutes, so I did hip lifts twice to make that an even ten minutes, and when I add in all the PT exercises after, this takes about 26 minutes. So this paired with core gets me to 46 minutes. I wanted an hour of total activity, and I needed something for my upper body, but I also needed to do it in a way where I was not putting any extra weight on my legs or pressure on my shin. 

​So I made something up. I wanted to do pushups, but that was too much pressure, so I modified it to the much less cool knee pushups, which were more effective than I thought, I also have a resistance band, so I would put that in my hands and stretch it horizontally, which does parts of the back and the shoulders. Then I grab my medicine ball and pump it out horizontally. Sometimes I do it more inclined, and other times I do it more declined. This way different parts of my chest and shoulders are working. Then I do the resistance band behind my head and pull it apart, which helps with triceps some and shoulders I think(?). 

​Originally, I just wanted to do this for 10 minutes, which got me to a total of 56 minutes, and at first, I could get five sets of each in the ten minutes, but as time has gone on, now I do four sets, and it takes over ten minutes, which is exciting. Another example of being able to see results and they are time and strength based which is pretty cool. Although it is not quite the same as weightlifting, and there was one set back. I used a black resistance band, which is the heaviest but after months of use, it snapped. So now instead of being a circle, it was now just a line, but this was still usable, but after just two days of using it that way, it snapped again, so now it is in two pieces, and I just match them up and use it that way, and it still works effectively, but it looks a little ridiculous to be using two ribbons of broken resistance band as my workout tool. 

​My body and diet have gone through so many changes from when I first got hurt. I started out around 175, and after months in the gym, I was able to get to almost 190, topping out at 188 or 189. During this time, I was eating so much. I was eating whatever protein they served at the school for the kids for breakfast and lunch on top of my breakfast and lunch, and then I would bring some of that home and add it to my dinner, and the diet was working in the way that it was supposed to, but then when I cut my workouts in half and the amount of actual heavy lifting basically went to zero. I had to change everything. The heavy protein and stacked diet dwindled down to just three meals again, two kind of small and one at a decent size, but all smaller than they were with a small snack here or there. So, of course, my weight plummeted again, and I was down around 172 or 173. Since then with the adjusted workout, I have slowly started to put on a little muscle again, or at least get a little more toned. 

​On top of that, my desire for cardio never went away, and at Memorial Day, the pool at my apartment opened, which was exciting, except that it took like an additional week for it to be even remotely close to pool weather. I spent like a week or two swimming in water that was like frozen. Literally the first time I swam, I went home and had a massive headache because my head was so cold. Still I went back the next day and the day after that. I also started swimming just ten minutes, then I upped it to 15, and now I have settled at 20.

​There have also been a few hiccups with swimming besides the weather. One is the problem of push-offs. I started to notice that after pushing off the side of the pool repeatedly to start a new lap was causing an increase in inflammation, but I was only able to make this comparison because of the other problem, the people. This is a small apartment pool, so it can fill up quickly, so depending on the day I might just swim in circles in the deep end because the shallow end has kids, or on really busy days, I will pick a corner and just tread water there. Oddly enough, even when I just tread water, it says I cover the same amount of distance as when I am actually swimming. Silly GPS.

​Swimming is not my favorite activity to do, but its cardio benefits and full body workout are hard to beat, so I have been doing my best to stick with it. The problem is that when I was doing it and putting my head under the water, I was spending most of my time thinking about running and not wanting to be there, and sometimes it felt like it took an hour just to get to ten minutes, but now I have switched it up a little. I now wear my bucket hat, and I put my headphones on so I can listen to podcasts while I swim. It definitely helps the time go by faster, and I can zone out a little more. I just have to keep my head above the water the whole time. 

​After months and months, I did finally attempt to run, and it was amazing. Just in the first few steps I felt so happy and free.  It was only a like 15 seconds later when I started to feel my shin. Not necessarily bad, but I knew it was there, but I came to do my mile, and I did it. It was the happiest I have felt in so long. I felt like me again, and 8 minutes later it was over, which was also a pleasant surprise, because I felt like I was not even really trying and despite not running for months I was able to do 8 minutes no problem. I do not think it was the best choice, and it felt up and down throughout the day after that, but I do not regret it. I want it so bad. 

​So I guess what I have been doing has been keeping me in shape enough for whenever I am able to come back, but the motivation is so much tougher. When I get home from work, and it is time to work out, most days, it is so hard to drag myself to do it. Once I am doing it, it is always fine and flies by, but it is not the same amount of fun as it is to go and run. No matter how fun it is or is not though, I do still think it is vital to do something active every day and to keep the body moving to stay healthy and happy.

Post Script: It has now been four days of running one mile each day, and each day, I have felt a little better. I really do not know how to explain it, but it is like there was rust on my shin, and the only way to finally make it better again was to break the rust off? So weird that running too much hurt it, and now running is the missing piece in making it better? I am still a little pessimistic, but it shifts a little towards optimism every day.