When does progress stop looking impressive?

How do you know if a runner is injured?

Don’t worry, they’ll definitely let you know!

Case in point… here is the story of my first run back from injury.

I used to think running without a goal meant running without purpose. But after months of wondering whether I’d ever run again, I realised something quieter and far more important; sometimes the purpose of running is simply to prove you still can.

I didn’t choose to stop running, injury made that decision for me. What I hadn’t noticed until this point was how long I’d been running for without really feeling fully present in it.

Of course, I didn’t recognise it at the time. I just kept going, like we all do… but it wasn’t until I literally stopped running around, that I realised all of it, all of the striving, pushing and chasing had started to feel messy, uncomfortable and pressurised. That high of running just wasn’t hitting the spot anymore.

There have been many moments over these last few months where I’ve seriously thought about giving up running altogether, yes, that’s right, just stopping running. I tried to remember what life was like before I ran. I couldn’t.

As I lay on the sofa rehabbing, my nervous system slowly began to calm down and I started caring less about what my Garmin was telling me (that’s not true… I threw it across the room when it told me I was detraining and that my fitness age was very near to my actual age!) and sat, rather uncomfortably with having to remember more about who I was before I made running my whole life.

Could I go back to a spin class? A Pilates group? Walk with friends?

Of course, I couldn’t do any of those things anyway, not yet, all I knew was that I needed to move again. My whole identity was wrapped up in being strong and capable. I’d thrived on smashing up the stereotypes of what a granny looked like, determined that I wasn’t going to fit that mould.

But all of a sudden, with a restrictive boot, a shuffling walking pace and Garmin laughing at me, I was very much a stereotype of a granny. And there’s nothing more sobering than a trip out with my grown up daughters to reinforce my new identity.

As they waited patiently for me to catch them up, my youngest offered me her arm to help me, I’m sure I caught an impatient eye roll from my eldest? Or was I simply attuned to it to impatient eyerolling, I was well practised in this fine art.

“I’m fine,” I snapped at my youngest.

I wasn’t.

I was thrown into this less capable and less independent life only a few years away from my 60th birthday - and suddenly the “stereotype-smashing” felt foolish and fragile.

But I followed the fracture clinics patient leaflet to the letter. When my husband told me I wouldn’t be able to “will” my ankle better, I made damn sure I did everything I could to prove hin wrong, (sorry, aid my recovery).

Patience might not be something I’m blessed with, but tenacity was always my gift. My cupboards were filled with Vit D, C + collagen and my daily tiple was diluted sour cherry juice, imbibed while sitting on the sofa as instructed, moving my ankle only the prescribed three times a day to prevent any stiffness. I wore my boot every time I walked and I rarely left the house.

I reluctantly kept going to my weekly PT sessions, I went under duress. I believed “broken ankle” meant broken, full stop.

Then came a moment that shifted something.

Week 2 of my rehab, lying on the gym floor, I lifted my upper body into a crunch. And my body responded before my brain caught up, I thought to myself, oh you still know how to do this.

The relief was enormous. I could still be strong while rehabbing, my strength hadn’t vanished, it just looked a little different for now.

Amazon packages started arriving- resistance bands, wobble cushions, more cherry juice. My husband looked on with amusement, ok so he might’ve have been right about not being able to will my ankle to heal, but he knew I’d give it everything I had as he caught me trying to balance one legged on the wobble cushion whilst simultaneously brushing my teeth!

Week 6 and I tentatively put my left trainer on; it had looked lonely as it lay discarded at the bottom of the cupboard. I looked down at my feet and hope surged, the visual of an old marker of who I had been stared back at me. It felt intoxicating and I understood immediately how easy it would be to test out whether I could run. Go on, just see how it would feel, you might be the outlier that proves biology and science wrong…

But I didn’t.

I continued to follow the plan to the letter.

My first run-walk was scheduled for New Year’s Day and as we were visiting friends in Yorkshire I had played the moment out in my mind countless times.

But the reality of leaving the house to go for my first run felt very different to any other run I’ve ever run. No headphones, no gels, no phone, no Garmin, no tight Lycra. Just leggings, an oversized sweatshirt and my beloved trainers. My only piece of “running kit” a sports bra.

I walked. I was surprised by how scared I was. And then I ran.

Other runners glided past me towards the green sweep of the Stray in central Harrogate, they looked like gazelles, antelopes, their movements so effortless and sure. An acknowledging nod to each other as their paths crossed, I knew what this two second interaction meant, a shared, unspoken compassion, empathy and understanding of what it means to be a runner on New Years Day.

I was invisible with no race t-shirt to prove that I too belonged, plus I was embarrassingly out of breath for someone who used to coach other people.

I counted my steps between lampposts, not wanting to fall into the trap of doing too much, too quickly as I listened to my breathing, simultaneously interrogating every sensation in my ankle. Does that feel normal? Is it any worse? Should I stop?

And I felt the joy of the cold sharp air on my face as my skin tingled in a welcome response. I took gulps of the fresh, freezing northern air and sensed the familiar warming of my layered body with the extreme coldness of my bare fingers. I’d forgotten the sheer elation of an elevated heart rate.

I was running.

It didn’t look like much and I’m sure it wouldn’t have impressed anyone else but as I looped back to my walking husband, I was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat.

“I’m doing it.”

He grinned back.