Breaking Bad

Usually at this time of year I write some mildly nauseating and self-congratulatory post about the races I have completed and the vaguely challenging heroics they entailed.

This year however is a bit different.

Rather than scaling the peaks of some mighty sky race, I’ve been struggling to get up and down the stairs. Instead of racking up hundreds of kilometres on my bike, I’ve been wearing down my friends and family with endless nagging requests to carry this or move that. And when I could have been adding to my nice shiny medal collection, instead I have spent hours in hospital waiting rooms and x-ray departments.

I never thought I’d be the one. I never thought it would happen to me. But when a ‘niggle’ that started in April still hadn’t gone away by July, I bit the bullet and had an MRI scan which revealed a grade 4b stress fracture in my right femoral neck. For the non-medical among you, basically the top of my right leg where it joins my hip had started to crack. This was in fact no niggle. Far from it.

A trip to the orthopaedic surgeon resulted in a sentence of 3 months non-weight bearing on crutches.

It’s funny. At the time I accepted my fate quite calmly and thought it would be a breeze. A nice rest in fact. A chance to have a break from the everyday chores and rushing about. Perhaps an opportunity for those around me, (read: my kids), to step up a bit and take on more responsibility and develop more independence.

However, I quickly realised that this was going to prove a lot harder than I thought. Not least because I run (in every sense of the word) outdoor retreats for a living. During the summer season I literally never sit down. So I just learned to adapt with a rucksack permanently welded to my back, the (now infamous) turquoise bumbag with hundreds of pockets, clever use of my 4x4 truck to get me into and out of places, and having THE BEST team around me to handle all the things I could no longer do. When you have to make something happen, you do. And when you are self-employed a sick note doesn’t do you much good. The show must go on. And it did.

But at what cost. I am a determined, stubborn old goat and wasn’t going to let a stupid old pair of crutches stop me. But of course there were things that I simply couldn’t do on one leg. I couldn’t walk the dogs (very far anyway) I couldn’t ride my bike, I couldn’t SWEAT from exercise, which sounds grim but I didn’t realise how much I missed it until I couldn’t do it anymore. I missed 'my' places, my hills, my rivers, my waterfalls.

But asides from the physical limitations, it was the mental and social aspects that took me most by surprise. Being on crutches is a very visual indicator to others that you have a disability (in my case, only temporary but still). And it changes how people react and respond to you. I felt like people saw me as weak, or they pitied me, or they saw me as vulnerable. I also got very fed up of people asking me what had happened to me. This became so tiresome in fact that I invented increasingly elaborate stories about how I had ended up on crutches, which left some very confused and incredulous looks on people’s faces. I also ended up avoiding lots of situations simply because I couldn’t stand the scrutiny and the questions and the loaded looks which said ‘serves you right’ in unspoken glances.

Being on crutches also really made me question my identity. For such a long time I had defined myself through my running and my exercise and the last race or the next race I was training for. I was a trail runner, a triathlete, an ultra-marathoner. All of a sudden I felt unanchored, lost, without focus and direction. Just trying to get through each day without the early morning hit of adrenalin and post-exercise endorphins was tough. I felt low, demotivated and completely drained of energy. In short, I didn’t feel like myself.

Being in this state of mind also made me question my mortality and impending decline into old age. It made me realise that I am not invincible. That I can’t keep pushing and pushing my body and asking more and more of it to take me faster, further, forever. It made me think about my own limitations and the fact that up until now every race has felt like a progression from the last. At what point does that trend reverse and you start looking for shorter, slower, less demanding challenges. Is it even still a challenge? Am I now doomed to a lifetime of ‘fun runs’ and cycles around the block?

I found myself in conflict with myself between what I WANT to be and what I CAN be. The head wants more than the body can now deliver (to paraphrase a well-known film). Well my cheques felt like they had well and truly bounced this summer. I felt like my body had failed me, let me down, reneged on the deal.

But then I started to think: what if I just cut myself some slack and eased up a bit. Saw this summer on crutches as a way to pause, take stock and reflect on all that has been, and all that is still to be. I started pondering a few key questions:

• Why do I exercise so much and train so hard?
• Who cares about these races other than me?
• What if I looked after my body rather than just pushing it to the limit all the time?

Spoiler alert: I don’t have the answers (yet).

But I have realised that some (perhaps even a lot) of good has come out of this past few months…

Firstly it has made me think about exercise in a whole new light. And it’s amazing what you can still do while on crutches. I reallocated the time that I would have been following my rigid training plan to enjoy outdoor yoga, swimming, and building up my upper body strength. In fact, after using crutches for a few months and trying lots of new exercises and gym contraptions I’d even go so far to say that I have never been so strong up top.

I learned that you don’t need to sweat and raise your heart rate to its limit to feel good after a session. There is a quiet, solidifying satisfaction in feeling that your muscles have been gently encouraged to lift a little more than yesterday that makes you feel somehow more powerful and invincible in a different way.

I’ve become a much more confident open water swimmer, through necessity rather than design. I felt self-conscious crutching into public swimming baths and wet tiled floors are a nightmare on crutches, which are prone to slipping, and I didn’t want to risk falling or landing heavily on my bad leg. So, I found spots on the rivers and llyns that I could drive to and get myself in and out of the water using a very ignominious bum shuffling technique that was nevertheless very effective!

I then suddenly found myself swimming for a kilometre, then two, then three…. Then I stopped counting the distance and the time and just swam for the love of it. The freedom of being outside in the water and feeling strong and powerful was quite intoxicating. It also meant I built the confidence to do things I definitely would not have done if I had not been on crutches.

We had planned a trip to Finland over a year before my injury and I was in two minds whether to still go. We did go and although not the holiday I had originally planned in some ways it was absolutely perfect. Our cabin was on a lake with a (very crutch-friendly) jetty into the water. Every day I got into the water, and I just swam. And swam. And swam. I swam further than I have ever swam before. I swam to islands. I explored hidden mokki (Finnish cottages) from a unique in-water vantage point. Above all, I conquered my fear of being far out of my depth and far from land. I felt elated every day. I didn’t run or walk once. If I had not been on crutches there is no way I would have done those swims. I would have gone for a run every day and missed that whole experience. I joke that I have set one foot in Finland, but not yet the other. And so I fully intend return to do just that.

It was in Finland that I also learned about the concept of ‘sisu’ which roughly translates as ‘resilience’ or ‘fortitude’ and is a personal quality that you can only develop having lived through hardship and come out the other side. I read this book whilst in Finland and it resonated so strongly. You need the tough times to help you appreciate the good times. You need to be able to dig deep when the chips are down and develop the mental and physical capacity to grow into a stronger person. In some ways I feel that it was all meant to be. My injury, the trip, the ‘sisu’ book. Was this the universe’s way of telling me it is time to alter my course and move in a new direction?

The other benefit (if that’s the right word) is that I developed a much deeper appreciation for people with disabilities. As a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant (for some of my time) it really helped to have experiential knowledge of how you are treated by the rest of the world when you are seen as disabled. I will never again take for granted step-free access to buildings, or automatic doors, or something as simple as a lift. For the 12 weeks I was temporarily disabled the world became a landscape of obstacles and an exhausting cycle of pre-planning everything single thing I did, and every place I went to, just to work out whether it would be possible on crutches. Imagine if this was your life permanently? For many people it is, and I will now not ever be able to ‘unsee’ or ‘unthink’ these thought patterns I used. I will also never forget how people treated me and reacted differently when I was on crutches. Which I hope will make me a better DEI consultant and generally a nicer, more empathetic human being, less likely to jump to biased assumptions and stereotyped preconceptions when interacting with people with disabilities.

I’ve also taken a long hard look at my lifestyle and whether it really serves me. We are constantly bombarded with information about how we should be doing lots of exercise going into menopause. How we should be following a plant-based diet. Eating more protein. Eating more fermented foods. Cutting out caffeine and alcohol. Taking this supplement and that supplement. Getting light on our eyeballs within an hour of waking up. Cold dipping. Taking hot saunas. Lifting heavy. Stretching daily. Going to bed at 9pm. Well, I did. I did all of that. Literally all of it. And look where it got me. Unable to walk to the toilet in the middle of the night in time to pee, even though I have religiously done my pelvic floor exercises every day, on top of everything else.

Can there be too much of a good thing? Can you do all the ‘right’ things and still end up in an MRI scanner staring at the ceiling 1cm above your head wondering where it all went wrong? Well yes, yes you can. I am living proof that you should not get drawn into the frenzy of health fads and trends and influencer-led hysteria around the latest miracle diet. The last few months have helped me come to the realisation that what serves others many not serve you. You have to pause and tune in and listen to your body and what it is asking you for. Take that nap. Watch that film with the kids. Really lean into those signals that maybe a slice of salted caramel cheesecake or a nice juicy steak might be exactly what you need right now, even if it’s not vegan, organic or outside of your ‘eating window’.

Finally, I don’t think any finish line, any mountain summit, or any hard training session will ever equal the pure elation I have felt over the past week since coming off my crutches. Even the most simple and mundane things like hoovering or carrying a basket of clean laundry up the stairs have sparked sheer unbridled joy deep within me. I feel high and ridiculously excited about, well just, life. I am so grateful that my leg has healed. That I can feel more on top of everything again. That I have regained my independence. That I am ME again.

I know I’m not out of the woods yet. And I know that I need to draw upon every ounce of self-control in my body not to grab my trainers and run straight up a hill and end up back where I started. I also know that things will never be quite the same again. It’s really not going to be a case of just slipping back into the old daily routines. Getting caught up in the stress and busyness of everyday life that affords me no rest or respite. Not having time to eat and recover properly. This is my opportunity to start breaking bad habits.

This has been a proper wake up call. My body has taught me an important and humbling lesson. And if I never race or run again I think I’m ok with that. This summer has lifted the blinkers for me and showed me that you can find beauty and joy and personal satisfaction in things that don’t involve numbers on a smartwatch. You can still feel a sense of challenge and achievement. You can still immerse yourself deeply in nature. You can still care for yourself. But you don’t have to break yourself in the process.