The Road to Recovery

I didn’t blog in 2022. I had started my Boston Marathon post after running it last year, and only finally published earlier this month. Work got in the way. But something else happened too in August last year, that threw a spanner in the work: I got injured. After the Boston marathon and a result I was happy with, I had reflected on the fact that I had barely done any strengthening exercises as part of my marathon training and somehow managed to run the entire marathon with no injury besides pretty bad chaffing and a lost toe nail. I need to clarify that not including strengthening in my training schedule was not intentional. Well, I could and definitely should have done it, but trying to juggle studying, marathon training and mothering was tough and anything that wasn’t strictly one of those just didn’t get done. I didn’t think much of it and really took my fitness for granted. Until August 2022.

My parents were keen skiers. Our annual ski holiday was the highlight of the year for me. It beat our summer beach camping trips even though it was much shorter. I started taking alpine ski lessons when I was 4. My dad loved downhill skiing too, but it was not my mums’s cup of tea and she would always leave us to it and go nordic skiing. One day I decided to swap my alpine skis for nordic skis and go with my mum. The feeling was very odd: not only my foot was not fully attached to the ski but the skis also felt so light. I was careful, did a little bit of flat and then when I had gained confidence I went for a very gentle downhill slope (so gentle it was almost flat). But I fell right on my coccyx. It was painful for a while after that and I vouched to never do any nordic skiing again (although I’m starting to consider again now, 30 years later). Ever since I have had some pain in my coccyx if I remain seated for too long (that became more obvious as I started work and had extended periods in front of the computer or equally long times seating in meetings). But that never prevented me from doing any sport, and I never really gave it a second thought. Until August 2022.

August 2022 is when I started noticing pain in my lower back. I was awkwardly moving some boxes in the packed garage looking for something and felt some pain but it’s happened before and I didn’t think much of it at first as it appeared to go away as quickly as it started. But over the next few months the pain kept visiting me on and off and gradually got worse. So I turned to my GP, who referred me to get an X-Ray. This is when I discovered I had degenerative disc disease. The X-ray couldn’t have been clearer: I had pretty much no disc left between two of my vertebrae (the one between L5 and S1 for those of you in the know!). At first I panicked: would that be the end of running for me? So I researched it and asked my coach who provided some helpful advice and reassured me. But soon the pain in my lower back got worse and my movements were getting more and more restricted. I was struggling to put socks on and do my laces. But at that point running was not painful so I kept at it.

The pain was always lurking though. Sometimes when I walked, sometimes when trying to pick something off the floor (despite adopting a ‘good’ posture), sometimes as I was just sitting on a chair or lying in bed. I went back to the GP, who referred me to a physio. We did some electric waves, and started to do some strenghthening. We both assumed at that point that disc disease was what was causing me the pain. We worked together every week and I was given exercises to do at home in between sessions. The pain was not going away, it was turning into some sort of sciatica pain with a sharp throb that only last maybe one or two seconds. It would happen a few times a day and it was truly excruciating. My flexibility was not improving, although I was working on it with my physio too. I still managed somehow to keep running although I had a niggling doubt in my mind as to whether I was making my back worse by doing it. Because it certainly didn’t feel like it was getting better.

The pain got so bad that at some point just standing up to do some cooking in the kitchen was painful. I remember going out for my husband’s birthday for a meal and spending the entire time in pain and constantly shifting in my seat wishing for the pain to go away. Eventually we had to go home early because it was getting unbearable, which was a real shame. I went back to the GP, who just suggested keeping up with the physio. By then I had started some regular sessions on a traction table (the idea is to be attached to a table with your armpits resting on some pads and a belt tightened round your waist which pulls your lower body away from your upper body - it sounds painful, it’s actually delightful because it provides such relief. Bricklayers are apparently the main patients benefiting from this technique). I also tried the chiropractor, because I was getting desperate (nothin against chiropractors but the physio had always been my first port of call as a runner). The first session was amazing, the relief was instant and I could feel my old body back. But within a few weeks the same old pain came back and with that came crashing any hope of long term improvement. Getting out of the car was painful. I couldn’t run with my kids anymore, let alone do things I used to a mere months ago like trampolining. I was feeling very low. The pain started to happen during running too. I would feel stiff to start with despite the dynamic stretches I always do, but a few hundred yards later that agonizing pain would come and then again and it was just so painful I would stop at the second or third occurence and walk home, defeated.

Back pain is extremely common, and anyone with chronic back pain will know how debilitating it is. Although the sharp pain I was experiencing would only occur a few times a day, there was also an underlying back pain that was constant and I had to start taking pain killers at night so I could have a restful night. A few months later, running was getting painful and I stopped when I should have been training for the Chicago Marathon. I felt stripped of my runner identity, which had been an integral part of me for decades. I was feeling terribly low. I scanned Google for hours for alternatives, as it seems that no medical professional had a proper diagnosis for that very localised pain I was feeling. I did an MRI, then a scanner, and despite a small oedema, there was nothing explaining the stiffness and pain I was experiencing. One replacement GP discarded it as something I should just expect at my age. I knew I was no spring chicken at 45, but I didn’t expect to have the mobility of an 80-yr old (my mobility at that point was similar to my mum’s).

I went back to the GP once more. He suggested that given that I was spending lots of time seating at my desk, I could try a saddle chair, that may help with posture and general relief. Thankfully the company that made the chair have a trial policy (as the outright buy is really expensive) and I was ready to try anything so I ordered one. Like with anything else I had tried, I put lots of hope in it. But the trial was unsuccessful as I found that sitting on the chair caused me pain in the sit bones (ischial tuberosities). So I returned the chair. I tried sitting on a medicine ball also, but I didn’t find it comfortable either. So I went back to my old chair. A few more weeks passed with no improvement. I had a niggling doubt in my mind though. I just couldn’t accept to have gone from someone so active to being stuck in a much older person’s body. This didn’t make sense. There was one thing for me yet to try and that was getting my IUD removed. The pain had started a mere month after getting it (which itself has been an unexpectedly painful experience), and it may well have been a coincidence but I had nothing left to try. I had stopped running by then, and replaced it with swimming because I wanted to keep some level of fitness. On one hand I was missing my runs, on the other hand I could feel my running mojo slipping away a bit more each day. I stopped looking at Strava because seeing everyone’s achievements was making me feel worse and I felt like a failure.

I did get my IUD removed. I was really hoping for instant relief. But then again, that didn’t come. Back to my GP again, whose only suggestion then was to give it a bit of time and pay another visit to the chiropractor and recommended a new one. So there I went. I left his office a fixed woman, just like last time I had visited my old chiropractor. But I had lower expectations this time: would it be once again a temporary fix? The chiropractor gave me a glimmer of hope though when he assessed me, as I talked through my hope of one day being able to run again. He told me he could not see any physical reason that would prevent me from running again soon. Meanwhile I continued to visit my physio. I was working mostly on stretching, and strengthening and had also replaced the electric waves by electromagnetic waves. It seemed that my life was now revolving around medical appointments to try and shoo off this back pain.

But then over the course of a few weeks, something happen: I noticed I wasn’t constantly thinking about the pain. Which meant it was no longer following me like my shadow. My physio noticed some improvements in flexibility. Not enormous (I have never been very flexible even at the peak of my fitness), but enough to be noticeable. I was still struggling with tying my shoe laces but I was moving more freely and no longer needed pain killers. I could start to see a light at the end of the tunnel, although I didn’t want to be too hopeful. I upped my physio appointments to twice a week and noticed further improvements. My fitness had degraded despite the swimming sessions, but the strengthening exercises I was doing more regularly were paying off. I was starting to feel stronger and no longer out of breath when walking up hills.

A few more weeks in and I felt well enough to start running again. I started, slowly, with just 3k. Then 4, then 5. Then I started running with my husbands and dogs and managed to push to 6. I did a few 6k. Then I went for 8k. Then I got ill with flu-like symptoms and that just wiped me out. I had just started to run again and I found myself lying in bed for a whole day and the following days I was in and out of bed with no energy to even go for a walk. But I just bid my time. I remembered I had run 8k just a few days before that, so that was possible. I just needed to regain my strength. I decided to take it easy and allow myself the time to fully get better. Two weeks later, I felt I had regained enough energy to try running again. So I did 6k. Then a few days later another 6. Then 8. And this is where I am now. And I am slow. So much slower than I was at that time last year. And it’s hard sometimes. A few weeks ago, I should have been on the starting line of the Chicago Marathon. It wasn’t meant to be this year, but I deferred my entry to next year. I’m not giving up on running. I just can’t. I will just have to work hard to get back to where I was before I got injured. But I think this is possible, and I refuse to give up on that dream to complete all Marathon World Majors. I still have a few stars to go after, and I will do my damn best to get them.

So this post is a message of you to any of you injured runners out there. Don’t lose hope. A mere few months ago I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to run again. I felt I no longer belonged to that club that I had been so proud to be a part of for all these years. I am sure I would have found a replacement eventually. But I am glad I didn’t have to. Because running makes me happy. Even if I never run again at the speed I used to, I am glad my body still works well enough to enable me to run. I am not sure how long it will last, but I certainly will no longer take it for granted. And when the runs feel long and tough, I will remember that I am still one of the lucky ones. I hope you are too, now, or in the future. And if you’re planning on running the Chicago Marathon next year, give me a shout!

Happy recovery!