Bosco Fitness: Pain Is Not Temporary

My last post in February was about healing, and anything but that has happened since then. It's been a rough few weeks. I'm injured and my marathon dreams are in real jeopardy. Besides being physically hurt, the emotional pain feels deep to my core. It's difficult to explain what running means to me and why this setback, this year, at this moment...feels particularly unbearable. I thought this was my year, my chance to rid myself of the trauma of the past two years and use my favorite tool, running, as a mechanism to achieve something. To feel something. To feel greatness. And to feel worthy again. When the injury first happened, I felt like I reached rock bottom of sadness. In addition to an accumulation of recent events - mass shootings, war in Ukraine, political turmoil, my rights as woman being devalued. Can anything be positive anymore?

Indeed this will not be the year of healing - or will it?

It's important to understand how I got here. What feels to be an all time low came right after a few months of an all time high. I had a slew of accomplishments this spring. I ran my first NYRR race of 2022 in Washington Heights. I won a third place medal during a local race for St. Patrick's Day. I finally started going back to CrossFit again consistently after being sick with Covid early this year. And I had the best long run of my life - a 10 miler in the pouring rain where I experienced no pain and true runner's high that I forgot that I was running.

Then there was an omen. About a week before the NYRR Brooklyn Half, I started to feel some dull pain in my right hip. This has been an issue for me in the past when I reach higher mileage in training. Dull became sharper as race day drew closer and I had to seek professional help to feel better. I *thought* I was ok.

RACE DAY - MAY 21:

I was so excited to run this caliber of race. I didn't just sign-up, I earned entry from my prior year of work. I had a special race bib. I slept in a hotel the night before and laid out all my gear (it's A LOT of stuff). I took corny pictures in excitement. In retrospect, I should have known it was going to a bad day when the person singing the national anthem messed up three times and had to start the song over!

The race began in Prospect Park. It was a one-way course, a loop in the park and then as straight shot down to Coney Island. Just like any longer race there was the normal progression. For miles 1-4, I thought "oh God - why am I doing this!". Then miles 5-9, I noticed I was actually running really well and slightly ahead of my goal pace. I could actually PR this race. Then around mile 10 after I had emerged from the park and had been running on Ocean Parkway for a bit, I started to get that nagging feeling in my right hip again. It was dull and I pushed forward, though making the conscious decision to slow down. I already discounted a PR at that point, but would still place a really good time for what I had expected to achieve.

What I'm about to describe next can only be likened to a movie scene - well from my perspective anyway. At exactly mile 12, I could see the rollercoaster and ferris wheel at Coney Island in the distance. I could smell the ocean. I could hear the larger crowds near the finish line. I was only 1.2 miles away from being done. And then it felt like someone took a gun and shot me in back of my right leg and I stumbled down, but caught myself before hitting the ground. I hate to use a gun analogy, but it's the only one that reflects what it felt like. Sharp and sudden. I got right back up. A little dazed and confused. I remember quickly looking around and all of a sudden realizing there were lots of runners in bad shape. Not just the ones that looked like me, but the super fit ones, professionals, experienced - people were suffering.

Further context: it was 90 degrees out, the course was designated level red for high risk safety, 16 runners were hospitalized and 1 died from cardiac arrest.

I got back up and started to run again. Within 30 seconds, my leg started to spasm (like rubber bands snapping or a guitar strings breaking one by one). I stopped again and went off to the curb to do some stretching. I couldn't believe this was happening to me, but at the same time, I was slightly laughing it off as a story I could tell later. I was confident that I would shake this off and keep running.

I began running yet again, at this point, only going maybe 100 feet, when the leg spasmed again, and again, and again. I went off to the side to get out of the way of other runners who at that point were full force, trying to take seconds off their finish time being so close to the end. I began to sob. I'm talking ugly cry with gasps and all. Medics came to check on me, and I brushed them off. Still not fully understanding what was happening. Other runners tried to get me to run with them (very annoying, don't ever do this to someone). I remember trying to run a few steps with one person (their face is blank in my memory), and then my leg spasmed again. This pattern continued for the remaining 1.1 miles.

At some point, I texted Rob's cousins who already finished and were waiting for me at the finish line to be prepared to deal with a disaster when I arrived. I remember muscling up the last few hundred feet once on the boardwalk by stiffening my leg to lock it out. This prevented the spasm at least temporarily so I could finish with some *dignity*.

Was I dehydrated? I had been drinking at every station the entire race and eating gummies to add calories back.

When I received the event photos, this exact timeline that I described above is evident in the timestamps and mile-markers. You can even see when I locked my leg out to drag it across. It's crazy. Once the dust had settled and I was home, I found out that my IT band that extends from my hip to my knee had micro-tears. I began rehabilitating that immediately.

The story is not over yet.

About 10 days after the injury, I went for my first short run. It went great, slow but no pain. The next day, I attempted to run again but wasn't feeling great. My hip started to hurt again so I stopped immediately and begin to walk home. As I turned the corner onto my block, I twisted my left ankle and fell on the pavement. I have no idea what happened and honestly blacked out a few seconds of memory. My phone was smashed. It might have been in my hand instead of my running belt - I don't remember. I don't know exactly where I fell either, just the general vicinity. That patch of road is very uneven and has lots of potholes. I was covered in blood from my elbows and knees. I remember walking home and asking Rob for help. I don't do well with the sight of too much blood and it really hurt with little pieces of pavement stuck in the cuts. I hadn't even process the ankle yet since the blood felt more pressing.

As I was getting my cuts cleaned up, I noticed my my ankle had swelled to the size of a baseball. It was throbbing and really painful. That's when it hit me that Brooklyn wasn't rock bottom, this was. And if you think I cried on the race course, the crying that happened in that bathroom was the real deal. 6 weeks later my kids are still talking about the day Mommy cried in the bathroom.

I suffered a grade 2 ankle sprain (partial tear, not complete). For those who have read my blog before, this is not the first time I've done this to me left ankle (re: pregnancy, hiking 2019). And way before that again when I was a kid. Clearly this ankle is weaker.

I still don't fully understand what happened. Some think it's all related, overcompensation. I think it was a complete coincidence and strike of bad luck. I was obviously distracted, upset, and was putting a lot of stress on myself to get better from the Brooklyn injury as quick as possible. I think I was in a poor mindset to be running and was not focused at all.

And let me tell you, once you experience this level of pain, you never think of walking the same again. I've been analyzing every step I take for the past 5 weeks. Avoiding all dangers. Cringing at sidewalk cracks and navigating through crowds. Pure fear. But just like with Covid behaviors, I'm sure that will be forgotten with time.

Now July 12 - I'm so fucked for the marathon.

I'm getting better, little by little. But I haven't run since May. And cannot run in my current state even if I wanted to. The lack of range of motion of my ankle is jarring. It's still swollen and discolored. This is supposed to be week 1 of NYC marathon training - this was my year. After 8 years of fitness goals, 4 years dedicating myself through races to qualify, a pandemic cancellation in 2020, and a conscious postponement in 2021...this was it in 2022.

Pure sadness.

I don't know what I'm going to do yet. The reality is the risk of injury feels really high. Anyone who has run a marathon before knows the real event is the 16 weeks of training, not the marathon itself. It's extremely taxing on the body and I'm starting off at several disadvantages: my asthma, my hip, my first marathon, and now my ankle. And I'm running out of time - crunching the training will make all of these issues much worse.

After consulting with some medical professionals and experienced runners, I'm giving myself until the first week of August to make the decision to drop out. I'm buying myself some time to heal for another full month. And honestly to push the emotional burden of the decision off until we come back from our Italy trip. Now with *some* mobility back, I've been doing some biking both outdoors and on a stationary bike indoors, as well as some light weightlifting. Keeping away from lateral movements and anything that puts stress or weight on my ankle. I'm going to increase my biking mileage for July to mimic what I would have been running for marathon training (in total time, not miles).

I appreciate all the support others have given me as I navigate through this disappointment. And the space people have given me to mourn something that seems trivial, but was really important to me.

Hoping in the end, 2022 was in fact for healing after all. Just not in the way I had originally expected.