Once a runner,always a runner

I'm listening to Editors' "Smokers outside the hospital doors" ,a song I used to run on during those 10 years while I was running.

After a talk today ,doing the maths I realized there are 3 years since I hadn't run, like more than 1000 days.

For most of the people around me it means nothing,for me it's a high price I had to pay for something that wasn't my fault.

The last time I ran I had both the ACL and meniscus broken after the accident,had no idea of that,run with that pain for 5 months and kept training at the gym.

Why? Because pain is nothing new when you run,you train to overcome the pain,to go further,to reach that point of runners' high,which is very real.

And during the years, running had thought me so many things that kept me going long after I wasn't able to run.

Because of running I did the 3 months pre-surgery physical therapy and 9 months after the surgeries, because I thought there was even a little chance to run.

But it was ugly,painful and quite imposibile to run again and continue to walk after,so I had to choose.

Those 9 months of physical therapy where you relearn to walk was hell mentally and physically.

Back then I thought someone powerful will help me get up when I'm down,but my mistake was to keep working with a guy who had no empathy.

So he pushed my recovery to a timeline that never fit my issues,I was pushing because I only wanted to run again and the result were many panic attacks,more trauma and pain.

I tried to get back to gym,but it felt useless for me when everything I could do was walk,no bike or running.

So I had to keep walking, but not as much as I used to,because of the chronic pain.

Meanwhile ,on this new life I lost people who couldn't understand I had to adjust everything daily.

Had a very rough and lonely recovery period when I was working all the time,doing 12 hours of physical therapy weekly and continuously for 9 months.

The road never got easier,I keep going at pain levels that most people would scream at.

Twice a year I do some knee injections,the only fix that still works,just to keep walking with lower pain for some months.

Every time I do them the pain is awful and it brings me back to that place of complete helplesness I felt after the surgeries.

Today for the first time in 3 years,talking about the accident my mind got instantly back to running.

I heard the most genuine "I'm sorry" that I never heard during these years and for the first time I wasn't looked at with that pity,I hate so much,or with that need to be fixed.

So,yeah I've missed running a lot in the last 1000 days,like you miss someone you loved and died.

I'm pretty much aware I might never run again, like I will never see the ones I loved and died, but in my dreams they are alive and I'm running.