There are not enough words to express how much I love to run and how grateful I am to be able to run. But let me tell you a story today that might help explain it.
You might’ve heard me mention it before, but when I was eight years old, riding my bike around my neighborhood, I was hit by a drunk driver in a GMC pick-up. I broke my left wrist pretty badly and just about pulverized my left knee. And worse, I was eight. No, I’m not lamenting the fact that I was a kid when this happened, but I had another four years worth of growing to do. And the worst of the breaks were in bone growth areas.
This started a lot of conversations with a lot of different doctors. One assured my parents {in my hearing} that I wouldn’t be able to walk normally again. Ever. Even with physical therapy, I’d be walking with a cane and with a special shoe that would make sure my legs were the same length, because they were pretty sure my left leg wasn’t going to grow.
I made a personal promise to myself to be up and walking as quickly as I could. I would make myself heal.
This is eight year old logic, of course. But I worked with my physical therapist. I used my wheelchair maybe for the first week. I used my special crutches {they were fitted with a special attachment so I could use them with my arm in a cast} for maybe another week and a half. And then I started walking.
My cast acted as a natural brace for my leg, and I started walking on it. When I could stand it, I started doing a little running shuffle. Before the prescribed eight weeks were up and my cast could be removed, I was galloping around the playground, dragging the hulking thing around with me.
The cast came off. Other than having an ugly scar that wrapped around the entire front half of my knee from where they’d stitched me up, everything seemed to have healed. The tricky part remained, though: would my leg grow?
My mother and I read extensively {you could call this our first research collaboration}. We researched therapy. Diet. Everything. And then we came across an article about the therapy that astronauts do when they reenter Earth’s gravity field in order to build their bones back up. Lightbulb!
I consumed calcium and vitamins like they were going out of style and I did strength exercises to build my bones back up.
And I ran. I ran, and I ran.
So what happened?
I don’t have the best legs in the world. I know this. But I love them. I love them because they carry me over the ground either at a full sprint or at a jog. I love them because they take me hiking over mountains and, lately, glaciers. I love them because they carried me up the Great Wall of China, over miles of Army road marches under heavy gear, across Paris and Athens and Rome, and down the aisle to my husband.
I love them because even though they’re not model skinny or miles long, they’re the same damn length. That stubborn left leg actually grew despite everything. And other than having a little bit of artificial stuff in it, my left knee functions just fine, to the point where it hasn’t inhibited me at all.
I still have the scar, and fortunately, I’m a pale Swedish-Irish-Italian girl, so it doesn’t really show. When I was a kid, I was so self-conscious about that scar, about having people look at it or ask questions about it, that I never wore shorts. Ever. Granted, it was pretty raggedy and red looking back then, but mercifully, scars do fade. Now, I couldn’t care less.
I’m more self-conscious about the extra weight I’m carrying right now than the scar {obviously, not self-conscious enough to not blog pictures} but now that I’m back in the running game, that will take care of itself. I ran two miles in sixteen minutes the other day, and after taking more than a month off to heal my calf, that’s not too shabby!
As far as my healing process went, I don’t know if what we did made a difference or if I just got lucky, but every time I set out on a run, every time I feel the wind and the sun and the beautiful euphoria that comes along with exercising my muscles in the great outdoors, I am immeasurably, unspeakably grateful.
A little running style for Friday Style…
It helps me really get into the spirit of running to be wearing fun exercise gear. I have to say that when it comes to my running gear…well, sorry to be that girl, but I love pink. It might be a side effect of having to wear gray-green digital camo every day of the week, but I do love me some pink. And I would wear this outfit in a heartbeat:
Okay, so it’s not that far off from what I usually wear. And yes, I do wear arm warmers when it’s cold. I don’t like running in t-shirts or in long sleeve shirts unless it’s super cold. I’m just weird like that.
So this weekend, grab some of that summer sun while it’s still out there and get a little physical activity going. It’ll do wonders for your mood, for your health, and for your outlook. And if you can run, even if you don’t like to run, take a little run this weekend and be grateful that you can.