These past few weeks have brought some high-highs and low-lows. Up until just over a week ago, training was going great. My body had never felt stronger, my stomach was finally tolerating calories during workouts, and each of my runs left me feeling on top of the world. My fitness was improving and my confidence was building. I had started to put together a race schedule: marathon in April, 50K in May, and a backyard ultra in June. 

But after a 14 mile trail run two weekends ago, my hamstring flared up. There was no sign of injury during my run. In fact, I felt so good that I considered going a few extra miles. Glad I didn’t! I felt a bit of tightness in the back of my leg as the day went on, and when I woke up the next morning I could still feel a dull ache in my hamstring.

The pain wasn’t bad enough to stop me from training on Sunday. It actually eased up during exercise, so I thought I just had some tight muscles. I took a rest day Monday and things seemed to calm down. I got back to training Tuesday through Friday. 

The pain lingered, but never really bothered me during exercise. It never got worse throughout the week, but it didn’t get better. I think the uphill treadmill and Stairmaster sessions did me in. Both exercises probably asked too much of my hamstring and led to some tendinopathy. 

I made the painful decision to forgo my weekend long runs that week. I was immensely frustrated, but reminded myself that the goal of my training was to build a more efficient, resilient body, not to run a prescribed number of miles per week. Clearly, my musculoskeletal system was not handling the training load, which meant I needed to take a step back and reevaluate my training plan.  

Having done a fair amount of research on rehab for tendinopathies over the past few months, I knew that rest and ice were not the solution. Rather, progressive loading to build capacity over time is recommended. The commonly prescribed protocol to rebuild tendon strength is as follows:

• Stage 1: Isometric exercises
• Stage 2: Isotonic exercises
• Stage 3: Energy storage loading exercises

The next few days, I took a break from running and focused on lower body isometric and isotonic exercises (e.g., bridge holds, long lever bridge, hamstring curls using a ball and foam roller). I also threw in some upper body strength training and sauna sessions since I had some extra time.

After a few days of “resting” my lower body, I got back to some lower volume aerobic work on Wednesday. I did a few short, flat runs and started to incorporate some additional hamstring strengthening exercises as my hamstring seemed to be tolerating the isometric and isotonic work I had done earlier in the week. 

My continued research on proximal hamstring tendinopathy (PHT) led me to the Run Smarter with Brodie Sharpe YouTube channel. He offers an entire course on PHT recovery, in which he suggests starting tendon rehab with the energy loading exercises. 

Since my hamstring seemed to be responding well to the isometric and isotonic exercises I had done earlier in the week, I decided to attempt the three exercises Brodie prescribes in his videos: prone hamstring curls, step-ups, and deadlifts. I tested the waters on Thursday, keeping the weight really light.

Feeling good on Friday, I decided (stupidly) to do another round of these exercises, but with more weight. The “more-is-better” mentality got the better of me and the pain came back with a vengeance on Sunday, leaving me no choice but to take yet another day off of running. With how aggravated my hamstring was on Sunday, I decided not to run on Monday as well.

Which brings us to today, Tuesday. 

I ran this morning for 15 minutes. It didn’t feel terrible, but it didn’t feel great. I did another 15 minutes on the elliptical and called it good. I’m now back to my usual programming: making training decisions out of fear. I don’t know what my body can or can’t tolerate, and I clearly don’t know how to effectively progress my aerobic or strength training efforts. 

At this point, I’m forced to take the conservative approach. I’m currently fuming inside. I gained so much aerobic fitness this past month, and now it feels all-for-naught. Having to take this much time off feels like I’m back to square one. I know this isn’t true, but negativity is seeping in and it’s getting hard to drown out the noise. Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise is my anti-depressant; without it, positivity does not come easy.

Here are the lessons I’ve learned over the last few weeks:

• Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. 

I have the endurance capacity to run far and train with intensity. What I don’t have is tissue tolerance, which is why I need to be smarter about increasing my training load and volume. With another injury to show for my inability to curate and implement a training program specific to my needs, I am, yet again, learning this the hard way. Why do I continue to make this mistake over and over and over again??? Oh. . . because I’m human, of course. 

• Optimism is the hardest, most important work of all. 

These past few weeks have shown me that I’m wired for negativity, which turns me into somewhat of a miserable human when things aren’t going my way. I too easily let frustration and anger from one area of my life seep into all areas of my life. 

This last week especially, my injury put me into a downward spiral emotionally. Not only has my negative mindset interfered with my ability to make smart training decisions, my frustrations about running have caused me to be short with my daughter and husband more times than I’d like to admit. My inability to be the mother and wife I aspire to be all because of something so trivial has made me feel like complete garbage. 

Optimism, it seems, needs to be a major focus of my training if I have any hope of achieving my goals of building an efficient, resilient body, getting to the finish line of my 100 mile race, and, most importantly, being the human I aspire to be, day-in and day-out. 

To anyone else struggling to be the human you aspire to be, I’m right there with you. But as I’m telling myself now, compassion is the only way forward; compassion for self and compassion for others. We’re all in this together, learning and growing as we go. 

I will not give up. I will not lose hope. 

Persistence always wins🤍