As in defeated. They do dole out some harsh physical punishment, but no actual beatings.
However, today, I was beaten.
I have been dealing with a strain of my achilles’ tendon. I don’t think it’s even a partial tear (the only way to really know is an MRI that I will not be paying for). But, it did hurt and it has kept me from running.
On my drive to the gym this morning I really wanted to turn back around and go home. I was already sore all over from the previous days, I was (am!) tired. I just didn’t want to do the gym. But, I didn’t turn around.
In fact, I decided that I would try to run! And I did. I ran the first few little laps as part of our warm up, until I tried to skip and my heel informed me that there would be *no* skipping.
The gym has been good about modifying and working around this pesky injury of mine, but it’s meant that pretty much all of my cardio has been on the elliptical trainer or the bike. I don’t like those machines anymore. I just want to run! I was stewing in those thoughts as I watched everyone else warm up.
Then, in our first cycle of exercises I was supposed to do a pull up.. Thankfully, they had some support if we weren’t strong enough to do a pull up (spoiler, I am not!). But, I wasn’t even with the support. I spent the first minute just trying to figure out how to use the help. The second round was pretty much the same. The third I just struggled… And then, my body truly betrayed me. I started tearing up.
I cry during runs. Usually if I make it farther than 9 miles, there will be tears. But, I am in my own world then. I am not in a gym with hip hop blaring surrounded by other people who *can* do a pull up. I am not frustrated by injury.
I was so very tempted to go to the bathroom and have a good cry. I was half tempted to just grab my keys and leave forever.
But, I did neither. I sucked it up, wiped my eyes and kept going.
I don’t know that there was really a victory.
I am sitting here with tears in my eyes as I replay the morning. And I know it will be very, very hard to go back tomorrow.
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