An Unexpected Turn: Injury, Recovery & Athletic Evolution
Sep 11, 2023Season 3Episode 24
Lucie Beatrix
As runners, we often hit bumps in the road, but what if these bumps could lead us to discover new horizons in our athletic journeys? Drawing from personal experience, I'm sharing my story of injury and how it led me to explore other avenues, tapping into an energy that feels just as rewarding and invigorating as running. It's an honest conversation about turning disappointment into discovery, and how the same determination that fuels our runs can be channeled into other exciting forms of physical exertion.
The road to recovery isn't just about physical healing though, it's also about fostering a resilient mindset. From cross-training to creative expressions, I'll be unfolding the various strategies I've adopted to keep the spirits high and maintain an active lifestyle. You'll hear about how diversifying my diet contributed to becoming a stronger athlete, and how these experiences have ultimately shaped me into a better runner. As the Olympic Trials draw closer, I'll also be sharing my anticipation to cheer on fellow athletes, a testament to the incredible resilience and dedication of our sports community. Join me and let's celebrate the power of embracing challenges with open arms.
As runners, we often hit bumps in the road, but what if these bumps could lead us to discover new horizons in our athletic journeys? Drawing from personal experience, I'm sharing my story of injury and how it led me to explore other avenues, tapping into an energy that feels just as rewarding and invigorating as running. It's an honest conversation about turning disappointment into discovery, and how the same determination that fuels our runs can be channeled into other exciting forms of physical exertion.
The road to recovery isn't just about physical healing though, it's also about fostering a resilient mindset. From cross-training to creative expressions, I'll be unfolding the various strategies I've adopted to keep the spirits high and maintain an active lifestyle. You'll hear about how diversifying my diet contributed to becoming a stronger athlete, and how these experiences have ultimately shaped me into a better runner. As the Olympic Trials draw closer, I'll also be sharing my anticipation to cheer on fellow athletes, a testament to the incredible resilience and dedication of our sports community. Join me and let's celebrate the power of embracing challenges with open arms.
Speaker 1:
Hey guys, I have a bit of a confession to make. If you follow me on Strava, you might have guessed what I'm about to tell you, so stay tuned for today's show. This is the Lucy Beatrix podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. I know it's been a while since I've brought you guys an episode, but today's show is about what it's like being injured. Yup, I'm an injured runner right now. I've got my training on ice, so to speak, because I'm not really running at the moment, aside from here and there, as I've been navigating this pesky shin injury that I'm currently dealing with. So let's back up.
Speaker 1:
I'm not your typical runner and if you've been following me or you already know who I am, if you've listened to my podcast, you know that I stumbled into the sport of running in my 20s and then, after running a 244 marathon last fall, or a time that would have qualified me for the 2020 US Olympic trials I realized that I could really do something with this sport if I commit myself to it. But, that said, I've come to learn a lot about myself and running and how. The whole reason I got into this sport was because it was fun. It was fun for me, or it was a stress release as I balanced my crazy job as a fashion model and I learned how to set these personal goals and challenges with running and get competitive with myself and with others, and what I saw unfold was just so rewarding and fulfilling. But at the moment, all of that is completely at a standstill because I haven't been competing, I haven't been running fast and far like I usually do, because I'm dealing with a shin injury, and when I first got into running back in the day, when I first started running races, this same thing happened to me. So this isn't my first rodeo.
Speaker 1:
Back in the day, I wrote an article called how to Win at being Injured that I'll link to in the show notes, and basically I know what it's like to be exactly where I am right now, which is where you see all your friends running and logging their 20 mile long runs on the weekend because they're getting ready for their fall marathons and it's all so exciting for them, but it sucks for you as an injured runner, and so for me. Sometimes I wake up on a Saturday morning and I scroll through Strava and I'm just kind of like bummed out because I wish I was out there running those times running those distances with my friends, but I'm not. But what I'm here to say is that there's a way to approach injury that isn't all doom and gloom, and that's kind of how I've been going about it, because I think, because I went through it so badly in 2016, when I had back to back stress fractures, I was out for over a year because I had fractured my shin and then I fractured my opposite fourth marathons metatarsal in the opposite foot, so I was limping on both sides and I never truly let myself heal. So I was racing constantly on these stress fractures until they got worse and worse and worse. So, because I have that experience and I'm older and wiser and I know that if I want to get to where I want to go with running, I have to just let my body heal. But, that said, I've also used this as an amazing opportunity to get stronger and I actually am excited by the new challenges that have come my way, because it's like, instead of thinking about my day in terms of how many miles am I going to run today and how fast am I going to run and what does my week look like with training, I've been finding new ways to get that physical exertion in my body to feel good and then go do other things and get my head kind of out of the running game for a second. And what I've noticed is that, even though I'm injured, as a runner I feel very strong and I'm actually like I feel like such a more multifaceted athlete right now. So, in a weird way, having this injury has only made me that much more excited about other activities.
Speaker 1:
And if you follow me on Strava, you know that I'm extremely passionate about stair climbing. I'm probably the only person on the planet that's like this obsessed with stair climbing. And what I did is. You know when I typically would go to the gym? My favorite workout in the world as a runner is 10 miles and under an hour. That was like my go to. I tried to do it once a week where I would have a hard day and go yeah, I'm going to do 10 miles and under an hour. Well, now I've transitioned that same excited mentality of this little personal challenge I would set myself up for and instead I do a stair climb where I try to hit around 400 floors in an hour. So that's about 100 steps per minute. And this is not not easy it's. It's a lot Like you really have to put yourself in stair climbing mode and be climbing constantly to be able to get that kind of stamina and endurance, and it's just so different than the running. So for me, finding this other thing to get so excited, like I'm going to go stair climb my heart out, I'm going to like be cranking away on that thing as if I'm running 10 miles in an hour. It's the same time slot in my day that I'm going to go train, but I'm just doing other stuff. So for me, I found stair climbing.
Speaker 1:
The other thing that I've been managing to do while I'm navigating this shin injury is incline walking, and it's crazy how much of a workout I have managed to get when I do an hour of incline walking. So what I do is I go to the treadmill, I set it to 15% inclines, as far as it can go, and I start at about 3.6 miles per hour and you're, you're fast walking at that pace. That's, that's pretty fast to walk out of 15% grade incline. And so then I kind of just do what I did with running, where I negatively split and instead of bumping it up, you know, from a seven minute mile to a six minute mile over the course of an hour for progression run like I used to. I do 3.6 miles per hour to a 4.2 miles per hour of walking fast and I'm sweating the same.
Speaker 1:
My head is in the same kind of like go get it mentality. I'm listening to my favorite songs and getting fired up and it's kind of just a shift of focus. And it's not that I'm not like thinking about the running at the same time, because I am. I'm constantly thinking about like what kinds of workouts I need to be doing when to be able to hit my goals and like what kind of training will look like when I can resume my normal running routine. But that's just where I am right now and in a weird way, it's kind of the silver lining to all of this is like having this opportunity to explore other avenues of getting extremely fit, but doing that with just different kinds of activities. And but my mind is in the exact same space.
Speaker 1:
So I think it doesn't have to be as bad as everyone portrays it, cause I watched a lot of YouTubers who talk about what it's like going through injury and all of this grueling hours on the elliptical and just having, like you know, just watching your friends doing everything that you want to be doing and like, yeah, it's very hard, it isn't fun, and I feel, like you know, I have a lot of FOMO of thinking about my friends that will be qualifying for the Olympic trials in Berlin and I'm you know, I'm barely walking at the, you know able to walk the way that I want to, cause I have a limp and it's just like so far from me right now. But I know from my past experience, when I was limping around in 2016 and really couldn't run and we couldn't even come close to running, cause I was so broken that things heal and get better and you go back and you end up stronger than you were, and I honestly believe that because I saw myself get so much stronger and come out and run a 244 marathon after going through some bad injuries. So I know, I know what this is like and I think I can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel. Aside from the cross training, I would say another silver lining to being injured as a runner is having this extra energy or spark and able to put that towards creativity and making cool stuff or using the artistic expression and having that extra glycogen that I might have used running fast to write and to create and to, I mean, help my mom with her YouTube channel, things like that, where I'm just like I have a little more energy, which I think when I'm running all the time I don't have that. So I'm like able to actually do all these other really cool artistic things.
Speaker 1:
And another thing is that I think that like taking this kind of extended break from running that's forced, obviously, it's not where I wanna be has helped me maybe fill in any nutritional gaps of things that I might not have been eating enough of, and like exploring and trying different things. And so lately my boyfriend and I, who I live with, we cook all the time and he's always making different foods and desserts and we're, like you know, experimenting, trying different things. And I've been noticing that I'm eating a different variety of foods than I normally do when I'm training, because I think I'm so militant and specific when I'm in marathon mode, where I'm only eating the same things every day because I know that's what works for me, it's not gonna upset my stomach for the run the next day, whereas now I'm a little bit more flexible and I'm like, oh, maybe I'll eat this and see how that feels. And, sure enough, I think that in the end it's filling in a lot of gaps and ultimately going to make me a stronger athlete and a stronger person. So it's not like I wanna be injured, I don't.
Speaker 1:
It's not fun and it is kind of hard to like wonder what's gonna happen. Like, am I gonna recover in time to qualify for the 2024 Olympic trials? That's my dream. Like am I gonna be able to do it? But I also am thinking, you know what? This is a time to press pause on the running dream and do everything else I possibly can.
Speaker 1:
And when I look in the mirror, I see someone who goes to the gym the same amount of time a day, doing different things, getting stronger, finding little improvements in other ways, and I don't think that's so bad. I actually feel pretty happy. I feel like things are going really well. So, yeah, I'm gonna be in Berlin. You might see me there, say hi, and I'm gonna be cheering on all of the people that I think are going to earn their spot at the trials. I'm so excited for so many people going after this big dream that we all share, and so that's where I am right now. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. If you have any questions or you wanna share any thoughts that you have, you can find me on Instagram. I'm at Lucy Beatrix, l-u-c-i-e-b-e-a-t-r-i-x. And until next time, just be fast, just win.