Where I'm at right now
My name is Abby Heger. I am currently a junior in high school, and this is where I’m at right now.
I live in Hugoton, Ks. Last year, both our boy’s and girl’s cross country team won league, regionals, and state titles. It wasn’t until last year when I really saw my passion for running come alive. I was still riding off of that high from all of our team’s success last year, I ran almost everyday this summer. I trained harder than I ever have. Three days a week every morning I would wake up at 5:30 to get a run in before school and then go to practice after school.
My first three meets this season we’re successful, my times were not as low as I wanted, but at that point in the season you’re just getting warmed up so I just trusted in the process. The following Monday after my third race, I was running in the morning. You could see the stars in the sky and the transitioning colors that filled the sky soon before the sun would come up. I suddenly began to feel a sharp pain in my left foot. I finished my workout, showered and got ready for school. My coach is also my 1st hour teacher, so during class, I told him about the pain and he suggested that maybe my shoes were getting worn out. At practice that day I still felt the pain. The next day we had a JV race, our varsity always goes and runs a workout on the course, we were doing a fartlek workout, and again I felt a throbbing pain in my left foot. My coach told me to stay off of it and ice it, he said he wasn’t going to have me run until I got a doctor to look at it. That Thursday I went to a orthopedic doctor, we took X-rays and the doctor said that I was having a “stress reaction”, basically if I kept running it would lead to a stress fracture. He told me to wear a boot for 4 weeks, I would still get to run at the end of the season, which is all that really matters. I was bummed, but I went through with it. Two weeks laterI had a following appointment, they scheduled an MRI and another X-ray to either release me to begin running again, or to find a stress fracture. After the procedures, my mother and I waited patiently in the doctors room for the doctor to get off the phone with the radiologist. “Okay, either I’m going to be released or they’re gonna find a stress fracture, either way I’m ready” I thought to myself. The doctor came in and what he said shortly after that made my heart sink in my chest. “You have three stress fractures and another start of one in your left foot, it’s from the over-use and the repetitive impact on your foot.”
Right now in another universe, I’m perfectly fine. My foot is healthy, there’s no trace of cracks, I’ve never had a stress fracture-let alone 3 of them. In that place, I have a League cross country meet the day after tomorrow. Over there right now I’m running fartleks, I’m sweating, at a loss for breath, muscles sore-fatigued even. But instead, I just got home from school, I’m laying in my bed, the hardest work I’ve done all day was crutching myself down the hall to class, my only loss for breath was from walking up the stairs in my boot, and the only pain I have is from my foot. Instead of seeing my name on time sheets and race results, I laid down for 30 minutes in an MRI staring at it on a screen, looking at it on doctor bills and X-ray results. On morning runs, I’d dream of throwing on a cross country shirt from a college that I would dream of running at and watching my high school teammates compete at their meets, but in reality I put on my own xc t-shirt and cheer on my teammates at our own meets.
I’m not sad about what happened to me, for goodness sake I got injured by doing the thing I hate the most. I hate running. I hate being not able to catch my breath for 20 some minutes. I hate speed days, I hate feeling soreness throughout my body, hate the moment you sit in the ice bath fighting the urge to stand back up, waking up in the dark of the morning every Saturday. I hate it so much that I do it every day. I do it because it is something that I’m actually decent at. I hate it so much that in all of the factors that make it so terrible, I love it. I love pushing myself to exhaustion everyday, coming home tired but feeling accomplished that I did something today. It formed me into the woman I am today. Without it, I am not myself. So yes, it hurts to know that I got injured by doing the thing I loved the most, but I’ve accepted it. It’s just where I’m at today. God has a plan for me, and somehow this crazy part ties into it somewhere, I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but that’s okay, I don’t need to know because He does. I just have to trust in His timing and be still.
So please, wherever you are in your season, whether you love running or you hate it. Just soak it all in. Don’t take it for granted. I never will again, I’ll be back.
- @abby_heger ( Abby Heger )
