I ran three times last week for a total of 17 miles. I’m losing my mind with this injury.

There is nothing that can prepare a runner for being forced to take time off for injury. When you’re training hard for a goal, you become a master at doing whatever it takes to get a run in. I was getting up at 4:30 to get the medium-long midweek run in before work just six weeks ago. Since peak week, my average weekly mileage has plummeted, and honestly, I’m lost.

I’ve been diligent about rehab and rolling, and I’m doing more yoga now than I have in ages. Part of running is believing in your training and having faith that you’ll get out what you put into it. I suppose the same holds true for rehab and returning from injury, but I find it a lot harder to keep the faith when I’m trying to get back to running than when I’m training hard for a race.

How can I not panic?!

When I got my stress fracture in 2015, I panicked. I panicked that I’d put on weight and that I’d lose the little fitness I’d gained in the year or so I’d been running. In the year I’ve been back since the stress fracture, I’ve gotten so much more fit, and have so much more to lose, but I’m not completely panicked. I know I can keep my aerobic fitness up by cycling, and I can probably run enough that my musculoskeletal system won’t lose its training adaptation.

There’s not a lot of panic this time around. I have the normal injury thoughts floating around – “What if I never get better?” and “What if I can never run without pain again?”. But rationally, I know that ITBS should be a relatively quick recovery, especially given how diligent I’m being about rehab. Reminding myself that being smart about running and rehab now gets me back on the road sooner doesn’t hurt either.

Mostly, I’m just antsy. I’m ready to get back out there and run. It’s cold outside! There are leaves on the ground  and I barely had a chance to use my tights before the ITBS really set in! I genuinely miss running, not just the benefits I get from it.

How can I stay fit?

Let me tell you, I’ve been using my FitStar yoga app nearly daily. I’ve been doing the Strength Running ITBS rehab protocol with the same frequency. I’m so desperate that I did 20 miles on the indoor recumbent bike on Saturday morning. I am not worried about fitness. Anything I lose should be relatively easy to gain back, and I’m in running for the long term progress, not just through the next race.

I have to admit that I’m surprised at how much the rehab routine gets my heart rate up. My HR is routinely in the 130s and 140s while I’m doing the exercises. While that’s mostly recovery heart rate zones for me, it’s still better than nothing. When I was biking, my goal was to stay between 150 and 155 bpm, which is a solid general aerobic effort for me.

As time passes, I’m finding that I’m more able to increase the frequency of my runs than my distance per run, so adding in another day or two of three or four miles is preferable to adding an extra mile or two on to my existing runs. I’m able to get my mileage up higher, and three miles in a day is better than no miles.

Is there a bright side to injury?

I’m up to 13 miles already this week. I have every expectation of being able to hit 20 miles this week, and hopefully more than that. No doctor can give you a definite timeline on coming back, so you just have to feel your way back. I had an appointment with a chiropractor yesterday, and he had the same ideas about the root of my injury that I did. We’re working on strengthening and loosening and leveling so I can be a stronger runner on the other side.

It’s hard to try to reframe these sorts of setbacks as blessings in disguise. If it takes a relatively benign injury to force me to confront something that might have sidelined me for months later on, perhaps that’s what this is. Until I’m back to 100%, I’m just going to log the miles I can and crosstrain like a mofo.