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Lessons and Takeaways
I've learned a lot about both myself and exercising in general throughout this journey. Here are 10 of my favorite things I learned:
1. It’s often difficult to notice progress as it is happening.
I wrote something along those lines on February 4th, when I realized that, a month after my first running steps, my “taking it easy” was running just a mile to warm up. I didn’t miraculously jump from hardly being able to run to running an easy mile in a month, though. Rather, I slowly progressed throughout the month, often not realizing how much I was improving.
3. Push yourself, even when you don’t want to — especially when you don’t want to. Your body is capable of more than you realize.
Push yourself (within reason, of course) while still listening to your body. Do the hill workout or the sprint workout, even when nothing sounds less enjoyable. You aren’t going to improve much if you stay close to your comfort zone. Doing hard things is good for you, both physically and mentally.
I think this applies whether or not you’re recovering from an injury. When I got to the point in my recovery where I was no longer limited by my leg, I still wouldn’t want to do hard running workouts because, frankly, I don’t find them very fun. But the payoff is beyond worth it, and I wouldn’t have seen all of the improvement I saw if I hadn’t pushed myself the way I did in some of my last workouts.
5. Sleep matters. Like, a lot.
This isn’t a groundbreaking statement in any way, shape, or form, but I don’t think I’m alone in often thinking I can push through on too little sleep, especially because I’m young. But even if I can sometimes, that doesn’t mean it’s good for me, and getting more sleep will always be more productive than trying to power through.
This was something that my physical therapists stressed to me and something that I saw clearly through my journal entries, including on April 1. Paying attention to your sleep and how it impacts your workouts can show you just how important it is.
7. Consistency, accountability, and routine are incredibly important.
I sometimes struggle to hold myself accountable, especially when there’s no strict deadline or I’m working on something that doesn’t involve other people that I’m accountable to. But this project, and the accountability of having a deliverable, gave me a structure that kept me consistent.
I almost never skipped workouts (unless I was sick), and while recovering was already a goal I was incredibly motivated to achieve, I almost certainly would have skipped a few workouts if I didn’t have the accountability system I created in place. Creating a routine and structure that had accountability built in kept me consistent.
9. Doing something just because you want to can completely change your outlook on it.
I started this project not because I liked running, but because I wanted to be able to run again. Even though I didn’t like running in high school, I knew it was an important thing to be able to do, even if I wasn’t good. But now, after working so hard to be able to run and building up more endurance and ability than I expected to, I’ve found myself enjoying running. I don’t view running as a chore or task I have to do anymore; I view it both as something I get to do and something I want to do.
Running has become a fairly regular part of my life now, and although I didn’t expect that to happen, I like it this way.
2. Listening to your body really matters, and it goes both ways.
Listening to your body isn’t just about stopping if you think you might be pushing too hard, although that is definitely very important. But sometimes, your body can also tell you that it’s capable of more than you’re expecting of it, and it’s worth listening to that, too. Some of my best runs surprised me because I was able to run a lot farther or faster than I had expected to. On the flip side, I never regretted cutting a workout short because my body wasn’t feeling it. Sure, sometimes I was sad to not be able to do as much as I wanted, but I could always tell it was the right decision.
4. Keep track of your progress! It’s so cool to have stats and hard evidence to show how far you’ve come.
I don’t think I would have realized how much I was improving over the course of the semester if I hadn’t been tracking everything, and I’m certain there are times when not knowing how much I had been improving would have made it harder to keep going. It’s also just objectively cool to have a log of my progress to see how far I’ve come.
6. A year (or any seemingly long period of time) feels a lot longer when you’re facing it than when you’re looking back at it.
For the first 8+ months after I got injured, the mystery future date when I would finally be able to do basic things (walking at first, then running) felt so far away. Nobody knew exactly how long anything would take, but two months and twelve months felt like equally unreachable dates when I couldn’t do so many things that had previously been parts of my daily life. But those periods of time feel so much shorter now. This was a really good lesson in patience for me. In so many early moments, I couldn’t imagine waiting a year. Now, looking back, a year feels so long ago. Of course, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a difficult or long process, but it was still an important lesson in patience and perseverance.
8. Mindset matters.
I went into the journey with absolutely no idea what to expect, and I think that helped me a lot. As I started to progress and get my strength and capabilities back, I still tried to avoid having expectations that might set me up for failure. I certainly had goals, but I didn’t want to give myself targets that I might not be able to meet, knowing that failure to achieve those goals might make me feel disappointed or lose motivation. So I tried to keep my goals simple and qualitative, instead of quantitative. Running faster or farther were much better goals for me than setting certain speed or distance targets, and they still gave me benchmarks to work toward. I also knew going in that there were going to be times when I couldn’t achieve as much as I wanted to. Instead of viewing those as failures, though, I tried to look at the bigger picture and remind myself that if I kept working, I’d be able to achieve those goals eventually — and I always did.
10. Take time to be proud of yourself — and it’s ok to say that out loud.
I often find myself wanting to be humble and wanting to avoid sounding like I’m bragging about my accomplishments. But I think there’s an equal harm in selling yourself short and not appreciating how much you’ve achieved. It was genuinely difficult for me to say “I’m proud of myself” the first few times — and honestly, it still is. But I am proud of myself, and that’s a good thing. While it’s nice to hear that other people are proud of you, it’s also important to be able to recognize how much you’ve accomplished yourself.
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