{"id":557,"date":"2017-04-19T16:51:16","date_gmt":"2017-04-19T16:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ameliabooneracing.com\/blog\/?p=557"},"modified":"2017-04-19T17:47:07","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T17:47:07","slug":"i-fear-my-own-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ameliabooneracing.com\/blog\/rehab\/i-fear-my-own-return\/","title":{"rendered":"I Fear My Own Return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fear. I\u2019ve spent the better part of the past year advocating embracing fear \u2013 running towards fear, instead of running away from it. That (to butcher the words of Cheryl Strayed<\/a>)\u00a0an overwhelming sense of fear shows that you are doing exactly what you need to be doing.<\/p>\n

What do I fear more than anything right now?<\/p>\n

Returning to racing.<\/p>\n

I fear my own return to racing.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Start line jitters (photo courtesy of Kien Lam)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

Since the day I went down with a case of the femurs last April, I\u2019ve been asked on a daily basis \u201cwhen will you be back<\/a>?\u201d At first the answer was easy \u2013 8 weeks. Maybe 12. As we became aware of just how BAD the case of the femurs <\/a>really was, that number grew. Weeks became months. And when I effectively (well, LITERALLY) broke my back trying to \u201cget back\u201d to racing for the 2016 championship season, I threw in the towel. 2017, I said. 2017 was going to be the year – MY year.<\/p>\n

So here it is, 2017. Not even early 2017 – April, actually. Almost a year exactly since the initial injury. Ironically, the Seattle Super Spartan, the race where everyone wants to see the \u201cepic return” (newsflash: not going to be…not quite yet. Patience, they tell me) is the one-year anniversary of the ill-fated 25 mile run and 10 mile hobble back to the car. The last run, pre-femur. The last run before I spiraled into what seems like a never-ending battle with my own body, and my ability to trust the body that has carried me through so much since the beginnings of my racing days.<\/p>\n

In theory, rehab and recovery from an injury seems easy. Do your time sitting on the sidelines, bones heal, rebuild, and you are back at it. But\u00a0it doesn\u2019t account for niggles and new injuries (or random freak injuries from encounters with dogs…) that pop up when you start running again from a base of\u2026nothing. And what it REALLY doesn\u2019t account for is the mental side of injury. The utter fear that every ache and pain has set you back to square one. The nights lying awake obsessing over whether that\u2019s an angry glute max attachment or another sacral stress fracture. The entire inability to trust your body. And the worry that you will NEVER get back to competing \u2013 get back to the athlete you once were.<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t call it a fucking comeback.<\/p>\n

Please don\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n

Because though I would love an \u201cepic comeback,” I know the realities of my current status. I know that I\u2019m rusty. I know that, unlike a pure running race, an OCR course is difficult to replicate and therefore much harder to “practice.” I know that I\u2019ve lost so much strength as a result of not being able to run\u00a0for 9 months – not being able to doing anything involving my back (which is…everything) for 4+ months. I know that I\u2019m still crippled with the mental fear that every ache and pain is something catastrophic.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned in my last blog post<\/a>, I\u2019ve spent so long obsessing over, or just waiting, to \u201cget back\u201d to the athlete I was. That once I \u201cgot back\u201d to racing, everything would be right. Life would make sense again. There would be a season, and a structure, and goals and races to work towards. I spent night after night in tears, convinced that getting back to racing again would cure everything.<\/p>\n

So what is it, exactly, that I fear about my own return to racing?<\/p>\n

I fear that I won\u2019t be able to get back to the athlete I once was<\/em>. The pre-femur Amelia.<\/p>\n

(I’ve hesitated to write this because it may come across as\u00a0“woe the poor competitive athlete – she’s afraid she can’t wiiiiiin anymore. Boo-f*ckin-Hoo.” Some of you may be thinking that, and – well – fair enough – I can’t change that. But regardless of your competitive level, we all experience times of overwhelming self-doubt in our lives, both in sport and beyond.\u00a0We’ve all had times where we fret over an ability to live up to expectations, whether real or created by the constructs of our own minds)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve danced with this devil of overwhelming self-doubt and lack of confidence for the past few months, and it took my ever-wise and amazing friend Caroline Burckle<\/a> to set me straight.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmelia,\u201d she said, \u201cStop trying to \u201cget back\u201d to the athlete you once were. You aren\u2019t going to \u2013 it shouldn\u2019t be the goal. And you will drive yourself nuts in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

And these past few months have been a process of realizing, and accepting, that I\u2019m not going to \u201cget back.\u201d And I shouldn\u2019t want to. Because we change \u2013 we grow. Our goal should never be to return to the athletes that we once were. It should be to chart a new course. To build a new identity. To define our own terms.<\/p>\n

We can let the past inform our future, but clinging to an idea of returning to an old self only limits what we could be. The constant comparisons to versions of our old selves only sets us up for disappoints and regrets. Instead, maybe we should entertain the idea that there\u2019s the possibility of being something better.<\/p>\n

And this isn\u2019t unique just to athletics. I spent several years in a relationship vowing to my significant other that I would \u201cget back\u201d to the girl he fell in love with \u2013 the one before the racing, before the podiums, before the \u201cfame\u201d. And I swore up and down that I would. That I was working on it. That the girl was still there, inside, and I could return to her. I wanted so badly to \u201cget back\u201d to her: but the harder I tried, the more I lost her.<\/p>\n

It took me three plus years to admit that I was never going to be that \u201cgirl he fell in love with\u201d again. But more importantly \u2013 to give myself permission<\/em> to stop trying to return to that girl. \u00a0It was ok that I may have changed. Because, like an athlete trying to \u201cget back\u201d to her former athletic form, there\u2019s no sense in trying to be an old version of oneself.<\/p>\n

The harder you try to reclaim that person, to reclaim that identity as an athlete, the more it slips away from you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So this is me, paying my respects to the old Amelia. To the athlete she was (she was a pretty decent one, I’d say)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Swollen and barely-able-to-stand 2012 WTM champion Amelia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
2013 Spartan World Champion Amelia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But more importantly, this is me embracing the athlete I currently am, and the athlete I will be.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m scared as f*ck.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m only scared because I\u2019ve let (what I perceive) as other people\u2019s expectations drive my timeline. Drive my athletic career. I swore up and down I wouldn\u2019t push, that I\u2019d respect my body and race again when I was ready, not when other people wanted me to be ready.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s hard to not let the question of \u201cwhen will you be back?\u201d build pressure and push that timeline. It\u2019s difficult to tune out the well-meaning cheers of folks who \u201ccan\u2019t wait for your epic comeback!\u201d It\u2019s stressful to feel like you are not fulfilling obligations of sponsors because you are not on top of a podium (shout-out to my rockstar quad-fecta of Reebok<\/a>, HumanN<\/a>, Spartan<\/a>, and RockTape<\/a> that love me regardless). Because you fear that you will let them down. But more importantly, you fear that you will let yourself down.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m vowing to change the way I talk to myself. Vowing to be kind to myself, to smile at the well-meaning cheers, but to, above all else, to remember why I started racing and competing in the first place – for myself, and myself alone. Because it was the unknown, and it was a new challenge. And I thrived on that.<\/p>\n

So you know what else is a new challenge? And you know what else is full of unknowns?<\/p>\n

Racing again for the first time after 18+ months. Accepting\u00a0the reality that it\u2019s not going to be \u201cepic\u201d (it will more likely be akin to watching a baby giraffe on ice skates) and that the only one who should really #fearthereturn is\u2026myself.<\/p>\n

But, as I\u2019ve preached over and over this past year, I\u2019m not going to run away from that fear. Instead, I\u2019m running towards it.<\/p>\n

I respect what I\u2019ve accomplished, and no one can take that away from me. Because I\u2019m no longer afraid of whether I\u2019ll \u201cget back\u201d to the athlete I was. Or \u201cget back\u201d to podiums and world championships.<\/p>\n

Because I\u2019m not \u201cgetting back\u201d – I\u2019m starting over.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I\u2019m going in with a love and a gratitude to even be out there in the first place. There\u2019s a time and place for confidence and bravado. And there\u2019s a time and place for humility and honesty.<\/p>\n

I fear my own return, but I embrace the challenge of starting over. And I look forward to the\u00a0opportunity to create a new path.<\/p>\n

For me, that\u2019s the healthiest place to be.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Happy Place (Photo courtesy of Scott Keneally)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fear. I\u2019ve spent the better part of the past year advocating embracing fear \u2013 running towards fear, instead of running away from it. That (to butcher the words of Cheryl Strayed)\u00a0an overwhelming sense of fear shows that you are doing exactly what you need to be doing. What do I fear more than anything right … Continue reading I Fear My Own Return<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rehab","category-spartan"],"yoast_head":"\nI Fear My Own Return - Race Ipsa Loquitur<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ameliabooneracing.com\/blog\/rehab\/i-fear-my-own-return\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Fear My Own Return - Race Ipsa Loquitur\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fear. 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