Marching Into The Peace Corps, pt 12: The Spirit Is Willing But The Flesh Is Weak

The most frustrating thing that can happen when you’re in training of a goal has got to be an injury. It breaks the momentum in one’s routine, causing you to slow it down or forces an all out halt to it. Not only does it screw up your training, it monkeys around with the emotional side of your life, working to bring you back down to the lazy, self-defeatist you were before you started off with gung-ho.

I had been faithfully walking, and I had completed at least thirty miles on foot when the front of my ankle began to hurt. My feet were covered with blisters, so I decided it was time to take a day off from my usual five mile hikes. It didn’t bother me much sitting out one day, but then my foot was still quite tender, so I took a second day off. The third day was to be a problem of a different sort.

Lacing up my faithful leather friends, I hit the pavement only to be stopped a few minutes later with a strong “pop” in my left calf while crossing a busy street. I almost fell flat on my face, but managed to remain standing. Since I didn’t have any experience on this sort of thing, I assumed it was a muscle that snapped out of place for a moment because I could still walk, although gingerly. Hobbling back to the house, I put my foot up and relaxed it on a heating pad, figuring that would make the Charlie horse style pain go away.

I stayed off my feet as much as possible for the next three days, and then I wandered back outside. My feet got about 100 yards from my house when the muscle popped again, so once again I hobbled back home and to the safety of the heating pad. Sitting it out, I was becoming frustrated because I couldn’t exercise, and diet is only one component of a healthy lifestyle I’m trying to make a permanent habit. After a few more days, I again wandered outside, and sure enough, the muscle popped, but I was too frustrated to return to the house, so I made my way to the grocery store and then back.

Strangely, I had this sensation of the popping in that same leg about a year prior, but it acted like a Charlie horse and then went away in a day or two. I thought I might be able to gently walk it off a little, but with each step, it became clear what I had done was not something I could just “walk off”. Picking up the phone, I dialed Laurie, and asked her what she knew about this. She always seems to have some great advice, but this time around she didn’t have the answers that really fit my problem. So I called Fred and he thought it might be nothing more than a simple leg cramp that would work its way out after a few more days of rest.