To jog 500 kilometers this year
It was the start of the year and I’ve always set aside a few days right before the year crawls in for my personal annual planning. When I get to my Fitness category, I bravely engraved 500 km in my distance goal and calculated about 42km per month, at the very least so I could complete the 500km without difficulty. I know people on Hive who could run this distance in a quarter or less but I’m not an elite runner just to be clear.
I didn’t find difficulty completing my monthly running distance goal for the first two months but almost three months ago, one of the things I'm too scared to face recurred, my lower back pain caused by my disc bulge in my lumbar and sacral spine (L4-L5, L5-S1). I had this injury since the age of 22 and I’ve learned to live with it, and overhauled my habits, and lifestyle to accommodate an uninvited guest.
For the first two months since its recurrence, I've always caught myself asking "Why now?"
Experiencing the pain all over again is like having a relapse. It’s that time of the day you thought you’re at your best state but suddenly, the wave comes in; you don’t even notice you’re already drowning. I visited a new physician, underwent a series of physical therapies, might have spent longer than usual hot baths, almost burned my skin on one or two occasions by my new best friend, hot compress, and rested more than what I felt was necessary. And truth be told, I hate it. I hate it when I had to choose reading in the morning over running a few rounds in my neighborhood. Not that I hate reading but I just love running early in the morning when the streets aren’t that busy yet. I hate it when even the most basic yoga pose, forward fold, for example, should be executed with the most delicate movement and transition from one pose to another is now considered as critical. One wrong move, the pain could be trigged.
In the last week of April, the hope I’ve been building day in and day out collapsed when suddenly, the pain felt like it could kill me any minute. I felt rushing myself to the ER, calling my doctor and asking him to do the surgery. Glad none of the things I assumed would finally happen stayed as thoughts as they should be. I took pain relievers, a lot of them. And the week that followed, I told myself: This is it. I’m finally putting everything on hold!
It didn’t sound so well. I sounded like a bell tolling. And oh, now what happens to your 500 kilometers? The thing is the physical pain is just one aspect of the staccato of suffering. What about my goals now? This question kept bugging me. One day, I realized that I only had to change my perspective; I had to shift my mindset. So what if I can't do long runs for now? I can still walk around my neighborhood! So what if I can’t do power yoga? I can still do stretches as recommended by my physician. So what if I can’t travel far and do strenuous activities? I can stay at home and cook and bake and paint!
So this month, instead of writing running distance goal, I wrote walking distance goal. I’m not paralyzed, I can still walk! And that in itself is a huge blessing. The photos here are photos I took during my late afternoon walk yesterday which, I’m surprised to say, totaled 6.5 km. Didn't know I can nail walking, too! 😂
Instead of whining of the many things I couldn’t do for now, I started looking and doing things that I could do with the strength I have and the state I’m in. And it’s funny I had to be in such a difficult situation to realize this. We can never get all the great things in life all the time but we can do great wherever, whenever. If we choose to!
