365 Days Of Love. Day 100

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been active. I had shinguards in Kindergarten and ballet slippers a year later. In Middle School, I was a perma-athlete, switching sports with the passing seasons. Despite all this activity, it wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I started running consistently. Prior to that year, I had tied my laces to go for runs, but my ill-motivations never sustained a long-term running effort.  My junior year, though, the director of our local rec center linked me to a dedicated runner and through that relationship, I fell in love with running.

I was never an incredible runner, but I could run forever without outputting copious amounts of effort and no matter the distance I ran, I always really really really enjoyed each taken step.

Until my freshman year of college.

I started school at Oklahoma Wesleyan. Since my high school track coach moved there shortly before I did, I was excited to run track under his guidance again. Our first meet, I surprised myself , and my coach, by finishing almost a minute faster than either of us expected me to. Shortly after that first meet though, my calves started hurting quite terribly. Each time I ran, I felt like my bones were going to snap in half at the same time my calf muscles exploded. Each visit to the orthopedic doctor resulted in the same diagnosis, “You have a stress fracture, rest.”

Week after week, I rested, but each time I tried to run, the same pain threatened each step.  When I returned to SD for the summer, I went to a local orthopedic doctor and was quickly diagnosed with compartment syndrome, which essentially means that blood and fluids flow to my legs, but once they get there, they stay there. As a result, there was build up of pressure in my calves (hence, the exploding leg sensation).  Two months after the diagnosis, the same doctor performed surgery and promised I would be able to run  shortly thereafter.

The pain never went away, though and running was never effortless like it had been before. A year after surgery, I was in the Sioux Falls airport, waiting for my one-way flight to New Jersey and I received a call from the orthopedic doctor who I had recently seen for a final checkup.

“Natalie, you probably won’t ever be able to run again.”

I cried. I was already sad about moving away from my family and this phone call was taking away the one thing that I had previously thought could go with me anywhere. Never. Run. Again. I couldn’t imagine my life without running. I ignored the doctor’s orders and I continued to run, but it was far from enjoyable. Often, my legs felt too heavy to pick up, which wore the rest of me out far faster than I was used to being worn out. For years, I talked myself into running, rarely every actually enjoying the 30 or 40 minutes I was pounding the pavement. I managed to run two marathons and a few half marathons, but running wasn’t what I looked forward to each day. Rather, it was something that I did because I knew that I once loved it and I wanted so badly for that feeling to return.

Today, I was trotting around Mitchell, re-getting to know the paths I started running on and it hit me

My legs don’t hurt, this feels really good, running is easy again.

I knew that this feeling would return, I knew there would be a day when I loved running again.  Each run I’ve taken since the doctor told me to stop, there was enough joy to make me want to try again, to encourage me to keep trying to attain that effortless run.

Running has taught me when you really love something, you keep doing it and doing it and doing it, even when it hurts, you keep doing it.