Are You Living It?

My left shin was raging literally a quarter of a mile into my run last night.  As Kip would say, “I was just a little T-O’ed.”  I’d planned a 70 minute run, so when I was already in pain before minute three, it was frustrating to say the least.

There is real merit to “listening to your body.”  Ice-pick type pain is probably a message along the lines of, “this doesn’t work for me,” or “this is only a taste of what it’s going to feel like in about an hour,” or “hey dumbass, you’ve got shin splints.”  I know this, and in general I will heed these types of messages.

However (and I do apologize to the members of the medical community, who will justifiably cringe at this), I believe there is also merit to an occasional refusal to be stopped by anything.  This happened last night.

At the same time I was presuming that if I looked down I might see a kitchen knife sticking out of my left shin, a clear mantra began to resound inside my brain:  “I’m doing this run.  I’m doing this run.  I’m doing this run.”

I compartmentalized the pain, turned up my music, and cranked it out. 

Seventy-five minutes later (okay, it did slow me down a bit) I was back at my house, mentally satisfied.  Physically….?  Well, let’s just say that the ice machine on the front of my fridge got a workout.  And we’re out of ziplocs now.

By:  James Schaffer