For me, my first injury was IT Band Syndrome. It. Was. Awful. I could walk normally but if I ran the band of tissue running from the outside of my right knee to my right hip would seize up and I couldn't go any further. It happened while I was training for my first half marathon 3 years ago, and it didn't go away until I started visiting a fantastic physical therapist. She was fairly active too so she "got it" when I told her I had a couple more races that season I needed to run. She helped me strategize how to run them so my injury didn't get worse. (It was mostly doing some stretches before the race, running and walking during the race then foam rolling and icing my leg afterwards.) After a couple of months of visiting twice a week it started to get better to the point where she cleared me to start running again.
Now my latest one is interesting.
Essentially I fell on my arm during boot camp while doing side shuffles during our cardio warmup just 5 minutes into the workout. I'm still not totally sure what happened, but I think it might've happened as I was trying to reach down and touch the line. (You shuffle 5 yards, touch the line, shuffle to the other side, touch the line.) Right after it happened I stuck with the workout even though my arm was shrieking at me to go home. I really sweated through the rest of the workout not because of what I was doing, but because I was in so much pain. (And I also debated calling my doctor for an appointment or going to urgent care.) After class was over I got a wrap for it, iced it and took it easy for the rest of the day while I did research on what was wrong. The diagnosis? Sprained elbow. It definitely made life interesting having only one arm--not being able to wash my hair on both sides of my head was definitely no fun. A couple of days later it was feeling better and the left side of my head was looking less like a hot mess since I could use both hands to wash my hair.
But about that first run back after the injury. The day after I was dragging my feet. I was so nervous about how it would effect my running. When I told my husband I was going to change to go for a run on the treadmill, he decided it was a good time to lube up the tread. (Anybody who owns a treadmill knows this is not a quick and easy task.) Then our treadmill started stopping while I was running. Twice. It turns out the area with the motor was full of cat hair. (The joys of cat and treadmill ownership!) I quickly vacuumed everything out and I was back at it. My elbow hurt a little bit, and I was extra careful to not whack it on the console. (It happens more often than I'd like to admit.) I managed to get a couple miles in and I felt my confidence start to return.
Despite being able to run, I still took the rest of the week off from boot camp classes. The next two weeks I wore my wrap while working out. I put everything I had into those exercises that didn't use my arm. It was still frustrating and I kept wondering if I would be able to hold my arm straight ever again.
What I learned from this injury in order to come back from it, you have to get out of your comfort zone but within reason. I was SO scared to start doing just a pushup or even just using the pump on the bottle of sugar free Torani syrup for my morning coffee. You have to get brave, and get just a little out of your comfort zone. So I took baby steps to get better. I started pumping Torani syrup into my coffee using my left arm. Then pushups while leaning on my knees instead of my feet. Now I'm almost back to where I was pre-injury. I still get a little twinge every once in awhile, but I'm so happy that despite all the frustrations of the setback.
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