The Definition of Temporary is Directly Proportional to the Degree of our Stubbornness

Email from a running friend ....

So my knee hurts and my achilles hurt down by my heel - as I got up off the couch, I ask myself "why the am doing this (running)?" Not sure I know the answer but there is something primal about this running thing and I need to do it. I know I need to go to the PT but am almost afraid to do it since they may tell me to stop running. I know you understand all this - you find this amazing thing and don't want to lose it. I know you don't have the answers but you're one of the few people who gets what I'm feeling. ......I just hate going to Dr.'s and therapists.

My reply....

I do know how you feel.

I also know what it feels like when you ignore the body signals and keep going. You end up not being able to run and barely able to walk for almost two months and in the middle of it all cheering for a whole pack of running friends at a race you really wanted to run yourself. Trust me that was depressing. As much as I enjoyed seeing you all, on the mental stability scale it pretty much sucked.

So go to the doctor and find out what's going on. If doc says don't run it should be temporary (although the length of temporary is directly proportional to how long we let our stubborness keep us away from the doc). If doc says don't run make doc tell you why until the reasons and the treatment make sense to you. If doc won't do that OR if doc does tell you shouldn't run at all ever again ---- get a new doc.

And -as much as I know this is tough to think about - if by chance you have gone too far - there will be other races. You my friend are addicted. You have plenty of running years ahead of you. You will be back. 

So I've been mulling this over today. Why do we refuse to stop when we know it's the right thing to do? Why do we push ourselves through pain or fatigue? Intellectually we know that both are messages that we need to back off or stop.

For me - thinking back on my Lehigh Valley experience - it was a combination of things. But mostly I didn't want to appear lazy and I didn't want to fail. What an ego, huh? Nobody is paying that much attention to me that they are going to judge me as lazy. And if on the off chance someone is doing just that... well they haven't got the right and I'd be stupid to care what they think anyway.

As far as failing goes. Well in the end I did fail. I didn't make it to the start line. I didn't do what I should have done early enough to prevent that failure. It's a tough lesson to learn. I can only hope I've actually learned it. :)

Why do you think we do this to ourselves?