Though injuries might go with the territory when it comes to sport, they still represent an athlete’s worst nightmare. However, as Verity Ockenden writes, a spell on the sidelines can help underline progress you’ve made

Injury creeps up on every athlete at some point in their career as inevitably as rain, and this spring it took me by surprise yet again. 

I had set my sights on going one better than last year by qualifying for the World Indoor Championships. After opening the season with a respectable time over 3000m that suggested I was already fitter than anticipated and barely feeling an ounce of fatigue post-race, I felt buoyant. However, just as I congratulated myself on maintaining a more consistent mileage than I had managed the previous winter, I began to notice an unfamiliar tightness in my calf the following week. 

I knew I had neglected to massage as frequently as usual, so set about ironing the many knots out and blithely carried on. I carried on until half way through a tempo when the uncomfortable sensations that still remained began nagging so loudly that I could no longer ignore them. I stopped running and walked home. 

Looking back at the various other moments of injury realisation throughout my career, I handled this moment comparatively well. My last major injury was in 2018 when a tibial stress fracture was misdiagnosed as a hematoma and a doctor advised me to simply dose myself up to the hilt with painkillers and keep going. 

I grimaced my way through mile upon mile for a couple of weeks until I was hopping so badly that I finally gave up three miles into the woods, slumping to the ground and wailing incoherently down the phone to my coach for a good half hour until some walkers appeared prompting me to compose myself and scarper shamefaced as quickly as my leg would allow. Once I had accepted the injury was indeed a fracture and sought specialist advice, I maintained my fitness by throwing myself into cross-training as well as spending my resting hours processing my emotions through writing poetry. 

I worked hard at developing the patience and trust in the healing process that I knew was necessary, but I still struggled to shake the bitterness I felt at the loss of an entire summer season and I was often unkind not only to myself but to those around me.

Oh sparrow heart you beat so fast
nose pressed hard to the hourglass
full as a desert and slow as a snake
lulled by the sun and barely awake
you’re waiting for a shifting breeze
waiting for the changing leaves
to feel your pulse bring tsunamis
another dawn, a day to seize.

Ugly as it was, I learned from the experience. I still care just as passionately as ever about competing but at the time of writing it has been several weeks since I stopped running during my tempo, and I haven’t cried about it once. Over the years I have gained a far greater respect for the influence my mind has over my body.

Our bodies do not differentiate much between the stresses we put ourselves under in life, whether that be the physical stress of training or the emotional stress of not training. Either way we trigger similar hormonal responses (namely increased cortisol levels) and so the happier we can remain, the faster we can move forward from these stresses. Figure out a way to stay calm and enjoy the process of treatment and rehabilitation and you will already be giving yourself a home advantage.

However, I am well aware that this is far easier said than done. For those of us who feel a constant need to achieve, simply accepting that rest itself is still work can be difficult. Distracting yourself with other activities and using the time that you have to strengthen and invest in other areas of your life or your training is a great tactic. Rarely is there an injury so all-encompassing that it prevents you from directing your energies towards some other worthwhile activity.

One of the greatest problems I find with injury is its disruption of my normal routine. My morning runs expose me to the fresh air and sunshine that naturally boosts my serotonin levels and the endorphins produced from exercise also boost my mood. 

Without the reassuring structure of a regular training schedule and the positive biological effects of a routine such as this, it is astonishingly easy to spiral into a cycle of negativity. Guilt and self-doubt are often the most  destructive culprits here as we look for “what we did wrong” to cause such injury and worry about the newfound uncertainty of our future capabilities. 

With this in mind, the faster you  can establish a plan of action and new routine that replaces as best as possible the elements missing from your normal training, the better. Mirror your usual habits as much as possible so that your sense of order and discipline remains intact and, in turn, your self-esteem. 

It is notoriously difficult to establish new routines, so there is no shame in roping in as many people as you need to in order to keep you accountable. When the healing process seems never-ending and motivation levels lag as the novelty of biking and aqua-jogging wears off, I ask friends to help me plan my days and send me text reminders to complete certain tasks. Leaning on such friendships is an important aspect of maintaining morale while you miss out on training with your usual group of team-mates. 

Despite all your best efforts, there will still be days when your progress is not linear and the fear that you may have taken a step backwards rather than forwards can be crushing, but these are the moments in which a steadfast belief in both yourself and your team must be upheld.

If you can achieve all this while you are injured and moreover you can bring your newfound balance and skills with you into your next healthy phase of training, you’ll be stronger and richer for it.