Finding Hope During Injuries, Illnesses, & Setbacks - Coach Tip Tuesday

This past weekend, I was working at Mello Velo Bicycle Shop when my friend (and local cycling legend) Ben Rabin walked in.  I’ve known Ben for a long time now; when I was struck by an automobile while riding my bicycle in 2012, he represented me in my case against the driver.  He was also on the group ride on the fateful day in 2015 when I catastrophically broke my left arm.  Needless to say, Ben has been around for some of the most - we’ll call them interesting - happenings in my life.  Ben - who is locally known as “Ben Rabin Bike Lawyer” - has established a law practice that serves those who have been injured in bicycle or motorcycle accidents, and he is dang good at his job.  Over the years, in addition to representing me in several legal matters, he’s become a friend.  And so, I was thrilled to see him in-person and catch up with him.

The Theory of Relativity and Time

We got to talking about how quickly the years have passed since we first met each other, which led me to reflect on how time is so relative.  Sometimes it passes slowly.  Sometimes it passes quickly.  But no matter how fast or slow it seems to go by, one thing is for sure: Time passes.  And so, especially given our conversation and the fact that Ben has been present with me for some of the more significant moments in my life, I got to thinking about this and how time passes relative to “big” events that happen in our lives.  And considering that I just offered advice about how to return to training after being injured for last week’s Coach Tip Tuesday, the emotional and physical experience of being injured - and how we as endurance athletes experience the passage of time as we navigate an injury or illness - has been on my mind quite a bit lately.

Do you remember what you were feeling and experiencing four years ago today?

I do.  Four years ago today, on January 28, 2021, my beloved Boppy’s heart stopped beating and he died.  He had contracted COVID-19 (the OG Alpha variant) a month earlier and ultimately couldn’t survive it.  I cared for him during the initial couple weeks of his illness, and by doing so, I knowingly (and willingly) exposed myself to the virus, thereby contracting it myself.  I was the sickest I’ve ever been in my entire life.  In addition to a plethora of other symptoms, I had a fever for fourteen consecutive days, which broke a mere four days before Boppy died.  Dark days followed, for so many reasons.  Four years ago, January 2021 kicked off what was - beyond a shadow of a doubt - the hardest year of my entire life to date.

COVID-19 was destined to impact and transform my life profoundly.  And I’m not referring to the government restrictions or the cultural changes that the virus catalyzed (which is what so many people mean when they say “due to COVID”).  The virus itself - a wee beastie, a tiny, microscopic entity - was destined to permanently alter my life.  Not only did it cause Boppy to die, but it profoundly impacted each of my immediate family members (who all got sick at the same time).  All of us who didn’t die when we had COVID-19 have long-term, permanent impacts from the virus, to include cardiac and neurological complications.

But at that time four years ago, all I knew was that I had been incredibly sick, that the same illness I appeared to be surviving had killed one of the people I loved most in this world, that I didn’t have any energy (literally…dragging a chair six feet exhausted me and required me to sit down and rest), and that feeling anything other than pretty terrible seemed like a pipe dream.  Any path forward felt non-existent, let alone hopeful.

I started working with Coach Adam Ruszkowski (who is a Doctor of Physical Therapy) in March 2021 to help manage my Long COVID.  Even with all of the experience I had coaching athletes through injuries and illnesses, I knew I couldn’t do this alone for myself.  (Every coach needs a coach.)  Coach Adam had a working hypothesis at the time (that has since been accepted by the larger community of medical providers who treat Long COVID patients) that strength training would be the best thing to start with as far as activity and/or exercise went for me, since strength training trains the nervous system, which is where fatigue lives.  We started with easy strength training, and built from there.  It took five months of us working together (so seven months total from when I was sick) for me to be able to resume cycling.  It took seven months of us working together (so nine months total from when I was sick) for me to be able to start running again.  Due to some of my Long COVID symptoms, I’ve never been able to resume swimming.

At times, those days and months in 2021 felt interminable.  How would I ever be able to do a workout again when I was so fatigued that I needed to take three naps a day in addition to the 9-10 hours of sleep I was getting a night just to get through my work load for my job?  How could I possibly imagine running again when I couldn’t even go for a walk without my heart rate skyrocketing?  How could I conceivably ride a bike again when I couldn’t turn my head to the side (a very important thing to be able to do while cycling to look for cars and other threats) without feeling dizzy and disoriented?  Yes, indeed, there were days when I felt like I was deep in a tunnel without any sign of any light, let alone a light at the end.  And so, 2021 passed with absolute, glacial slowness.

How to Find a Path Forward from Injury, Illness, & Other Setbacks

How many of us have been in a similar situation?  Maybe you haven’t been as severely ill as I’m describing.  But you probably have been injured, emotionally devastated, or faced some other scenario in your life that altered your daily existence and/or caused you to question whether you could actually feel - mentally and/or physically - better or “normal” again.  And your perception of time as you were experiencing something like this was probably similar to what I’m describing: It probably felt like an eternity.

As an athlete myself, I have had my fair share of significant injuries and illnesses that have rendered me incapable of doing many of the things I love most - running, cycling, swimming, and strength training.  As a human, I have experienced illnesses, injuries, emotional hurts, and physical wounds that have rendered me incapable of functioning normally.  As a coach, I have walked alongside hundreds of athletes as they have navigated situations like this.  In fact, just as I sought out Coach Adam when I was in my lowest of lows, many athletes hire me when they are experiencing a trying time and are seeking help finding that path forward.  Injuries and emotional trauma tend to be catalysts for athletes to seek out a coach.  While I love helping athletes and am convinced that this is the work I was meant to do, I hate that their being injured or experiencing a very difficult time in their lives is the reason I often meet many of them.

What I’ve learned through my experience as a human, athlete, and coach is that there are indeed periods of time in our lives that seem very dark and that they will stretch on for all eternity.  I’ve experienced first-hand how slow progress can feel…so slow that it can feel like you’re going backward instead of forward.  

And yet. I’ve also learned that time passes. Progress does get made. And one day, you’re four years into the future, talking to a friend at a bike shop, and looking back and marveling at how quickly - and yet simultaneously (very paradoxically) remembering how slowly - those years went by.

Four years.  It’s been four years since the last time I told Boppy that I love him.  I’ve had Long COVID for four years.  It’s been four years since I could train “normally” without significant modifications or restrictions.  This is the same amount of time that I was in high school.  It’s the same amount of time I spent at Ithaca College earning my Bachelor’s Degree.  It’s the same amount of time in between leap years.  Quite frankly, I’m currently marveling at the fact that it’s been four years.  While I have a very clear memory of how slow the time was passing in 2021, it also feels to me like January 2021 was just yesterday.

Endurance Sports Teach Us The Power of Perseverance

I know what it’s like to feel and be surrounded by darkness.  And I also know what it’s like to see and feel the light.  In the world of endurance sports, any time we are forced to take a break from workouts and when we experience a loss of fitness, it can feel like we will never get to where we want to be, which is a very dark feeling indeed.  However, one day follows another.  One week passes, and another begins.  Another month goes by.  Then, the years go by.  Each day, week, month, and year that passes speeds up the pace of the changes that you are experiencing.  And while those first days may have felt like years, as that time passes, you begin to see that what seemed impossible (getting better, seeing progress) was, indeed, possible.

I started my return to exercise, fitness, and training with strength training after having COVID-19. Then after a bit of time doing that, I was able to venture out on my bicycle for easy half-mile loops of the street where I live. Eventually, I could resume embarking on cycling adventures that took me out of my neighborhood. Then, I was able to start running again by implementing a run/walk strategy. Eventually, I was able to start participating in races again. Then I was able to set goals at races again. Bit by bit, day by day, week by week, month by month, slowly by slowly, by not doing too much too soon, I was seeing progress. I had to make sure I was referencing appropriate timelines (aka not expecting to see progress day over day), but progress was there.

Sometimes things do happen in our lives that render us incapable of ultimately seeing all of the progress that we might want or imagine for ourselves.  COVID-19 did this to me.  To this day, four years later, I still cannot run more than five minutes at a time without needing to walk for 90 seconds.  I need to keep my average heart rate under 130 bpm while I’m riding a bicycle.  I get disoriented if I try to swim, and cannot tell if I’m up, down, left, or right.  While I’ve never regained my pre-COVID-19 fitness (despite consistently doing what I can for these four years) and I’ve never been able to return to training the same way I did before I got sick (and likely never will), I have been able to see progress and get to a point where I can consistently integrate the activities I love most into my daily life once again.  Progress was absolutely made from where I started from.  And for that, I am beyond grateful.

This is what we learn through training for any endurance sports goal.  We set a goal (usually a race of a particular discipline and distance) that is sometime in the future.  We are sometimes (maybe oftentimes!) intimidated by our own goals because we are not able to currently achieve them at the time that we set them.  (And this - the fact that the goal isn’t something we can do and the fact that it is something that we will need to work for - is exactly what makes them worth striving for in the first place.)  But we trust the path forward, and we trust the process.  And then six months, a year, or maybe even several years down the road, we find ourselves standing on the start line, then crossing the finish line, and thus able to achieve what once seemed impossible.

The Bottom Line

The same principles that we apply to endurance sports training when we are healthy - consistency, perseverance, pragmatism, and a little bit of faith - are the same things we need to apply in periods of time when we are experiencing an injury, an illness, or any other setback. If you are injured, recovering from an illness, struggling with your mental health, or experiencing any other sort of setback, know that doing something matters. That perseverance matters. Stick it out, even if you can’t see the progress today. Do the next right thing for you. And then do the next. Making those small deposits will add up over time.  And believe me when I say that you’ll look up one day and realize that a significant amount of time has passed faster than you could have imagined and that one day, the dark days will be a memory.