Read on for my take on learning how to fail, getting injured, what I learned from recovering, and going through hard things.

How and why I got injured and big life changes:

In September 2023, I began to experience severe foot pain. I didn’t just wake up with pain in my foot one morning, it gradually built up for some time, but I chose to ignore it as I believed it was just the usual pain that comes with training for long races. One day, during an interval workout on Mount Tam, I stepped on a rock and felt a sharp pain in my foot. I remember thinking, “Uh oh”, but I continued with the workout because I have this “finish what you started” mentality. I decided to increase my rehab exercises to strengthen and stretch the area of the foot, as I thought that it could heal the pain. It was four weeks until my big race, Kodiak 100K, and I had one week left of hard work before starting the tapper. I pushed through because I thought I would take the time to heal during the taper. It was on that Saturday morning, I ran with my usual San Francisco Running Company. I started the run with pain at every footstep. The pain worsened throughout the run, by the end I was limping and was barely able to finish the last 3 miles. My friend, who is a physical therapist, diagnosed me with a stress fracture from the start. Despite this, I was in denial and believed I could still run the race three weeks later. 

It isn’t surprising that this happened when I was going through a lot of turbulence: a separation from my husband. We separated at the end of July, and I moved from our apartment in San Francisco to a new place in Mill Valley. I did this all alone, with no help, not even movers. I don’t know how, but now, thinking back on it, there might have been little angels watching me. It was a dark time of my life. I was not sleeping right; I would wake up in the middle of the night in tears, not able to go back to sleep. I was not eating well, constantly feeling exhausted, depressed, and in energy depletion. I don’t have a bad relationship with food, but I can say that back then, my relationship with food was not right. I would not eat before long runs and barely fuel during runs. I saw food as comfort but did not eat the right things at the right time and amount. I was constantly under-fueling and not recovering.

My nutrition was all over the place because I was numbing myself from the emotional burden of the separation. I was not listening to my intuitions, I shut myself down and pushed away all the emotions and cues my body was trying to send me. My blinders were on. I was in energy depletion from all of it: the stress of the separation, trying to keep up at work, underfueling, under recovering from not sleeping, and overtraining. 

Things I learned while recovering from my injury:

I was diagnosed with a stress fracture on the cuboid bone on my right foot. On the bright side, the injury helped me find equilibrium in my life again and process emotions I had not let myself feel. Being injured sucks, and a lot of us are bad at resting. So why not optimize the recovery? Here are a few things I learned while recovering to stay sain and speed up the process:

You need to eat good food to recover well. You do not want to under-eat because your body needs energy to recover, it will spend more energy in the first few weeks of an injury to heal. Eat to your hunger, and focus on eating a lot of fruit, vegetables, fiber, and protein. This will help you recover faster, trust me. The last thing you want is to drop weight during an injury because it will be a detriment to your recovery process.

Go see that PT, and schedule it, even if it’s a month or two from now. Try to find a PT who is familiar with endurance athletes. I did not see a PT until 5 months after my injury was diagnosed. This was a mistake. Based on conversations I had with my doctor and podiatrist, I thought I didn’t need one, but they didn’t deal with endurance sports athletes. The PT is necessary because that injured body part is weaker than ever post injury. You rested it and did not put any weight on it for 6-10 weeks. Having a PT also helps mentally because relying on an expert can release the stress of not knowing what you are doing. The right side of my body got very weak after my injury, especially my foot and my glutes. My weak glutes were causing my footstep to roll inward, which then caused pain in my foot.

Schedule your day, put things on the calendar, and find activities with your community. If you can do other activities while healing, like cycling, swimming, or yoga, schedule them. You will be more excited and look forward to those activities if you mindfully dedicate time to them. It won’t feel like a burden anymore because they will have intentions behind them. This was night and day for me. I found that if I plan when and what strength training I will do for the week, I am more likely to follow through and also enjoy the session a million times more! It’s all a mindset. There are also many other things to do than running with your community. Get more involved in volunteering at races or local events around you. That saved me. 

Rest and sleep. It’s productive to rest. You are not going to fall behind. You are right where you need to be. Everything will fall in order. Don’t beat yourself up if you feel like shit; everyone feels like shit some days, and sometimes more than some days, it could be seasons. Prioritize and optimize sleep as much as you can. Since you are not getting those endorphins from running, your body needs the extra sleep to feel as good as possible. If you struggle to sleep, take some natural CBD gummies or magnesium before bed to help you relax, or try essential oil with lavender. 

Lastly, get a blood test and make sure your body has all the tools needed to recover. You might be deficient in something that you might not be aware of. 

Conclusions: Promises to the future me, learning to fail and relying on experts and your community

I’ll say something that might sound strange to most: there’s nothing more attractive than someone who can accept their failures. It’s like their soul is laid bare on the table. It’s proof that they believe in themselves completely, that they’ve put in all the effort to pursue their passion, even if they fall short of their goal. But that’s okay, because next time they might turn that failure into success, and take others along for the ride. Their honesty about their failure is incredibly motivating and inspiring, which is even more valuable than reaching their goals. 

One mistake I made was not relying on experts and thinking I could do everything on my own. I don’t take myself seriously because I’m afraid of failing. Nobody likes to fail, but it’s a part of life. In the last six months, I’ve failed in many ways, from my separation to my injury to my job layoff. It’s like my heart was shattered, and now only I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s okay to fail. Failing is a sign that we’re growing. You don’t grow unless you fail. It may sound cheesy, but it’s true. I used to think that if I didn’t take my running seriously, I couldn’t fail. If I didn’t tell anyone about my running goals, there would be no failure. I will now take myself more seriously and trust the experts in the sport. I can’t do it all alone. Relying on people who know more than you is crucial to success. Rely on the help around you. 

I’m trying to build on everything I’ve learned in the last five months. I’m relying on experts, taking myself seriously (but not too seriously; still need that pure silliness and childness), fueling my body with good nutrients and eating enough, listening to my body, taking time off when necessary, processing my emotions, and scheduling my training in advance. I will accept failure, and most importantly, I believe in my capabilities and the process. I’m excited for the future, even though it’s difficult these days, and I still ride the roller coaster of life. But isn’t that the beauty of life? Falling in love with the highs and lows, and figuring it all out as we go along?