Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast, we’re talking about how to overcome friends, telling you not to run after a traumatic accident.
Now, today’s topic actually comes from Jenny, who’s a longtime listener, and she wrote in and she was really sweet, wrote a really nice review that I wanted to share with you. She said, “If you are a runner, you need to listen. What I love about Doc On The Run Podcast is that each one covers one topic, is short, sharp, full of useful practical information that you can apply right away without having to go and do more reading or research.”
So if you think that you have a specific injury or are at injury risk, then you can scroll through to find the relevant podcast, and there it is because they are short, you can concentrate fully on it. Take a couple of notes and apply the bountiful good sense that you have just heard. I’ve sent the links and specific relevant episodes to running friends many times. If you are not already subscribed, then you’re missing out.
Well, Jenny, thank you so much for writing that review and sending it in and if you’re watching this, if you’re listening and you have a review that you think that would be helpful to other people like Jenny’s and you’d be willing to write a review, I would be really, really grateful. Just like Jenny said, she sends her podcast that she finds useful for other friends to other running friends who might want to hear it and if you can do that, that would really help reach other runners and in addition, if you write a review, frankly, it just helps us reach more runners as well so that they can get the benefit as well. So if you enjoy it, please share it.
Now, onto Jenny’s question. This is really a great question and it’s pretty common and it applies to many runners who get an injury, whether it’s traumatic or not and what she really wanted to know and what she wrote specifically actually was she said, “Would you consider doing an episode on return to running after an accident and how to overcome the fact that everyone tells you that you should not run, even when your surgeons and physios have said that it is safe for you to run and really good for you to exercise? Many thanks and best wishes, Jenny.”
Listen Jenny, I really, again, I appreciate you sending that in, but this is a great question that she’s brought up. Because if you think about this, if you’re a runner and you get an injury, let’s say you get a planter plate sprain and your foot hurts. Let’s say you get a stress fracture and you’re told you can’t run.
First of all, you get really bummed out and then what happens? Your sleep gets disrupted. Your stress goes up and your anxiety goes up. Those things are actually counter to healing. And we know that for us as runners, people who really do like to run, running is not optional. It is an essential activity. It makes you happy. It makes you more centered. It helps you have a better day, and that is not something that you imagine. It is a thing that happens. biomechanically, biochemically, not biomechanically.
But it’s a thing that is a form of healing when we treat ourselves with exercise in activity, that is actually good for our systems physiologically. And so what Jenny’s talking about is really common. Where you get in an accident, let’s say you’re in an automobile accident or a motorcycle accident or a fall, something where you have a traumatic injury and you get really seriously injured.
Well, your family, your friends, the people that love and care about you, they’re all really worried about you and they want you to be safe and they don’t want to see you suffer. Because they probably saw you suffer in the hospital in a bed when you were unconscious, something terrible that was really traumatic for them.
But we know that for you, a form of healing the trauma that you’ve been through is actually overcoming those obstacles. It’s really important to get back on the horse, so to speak, and think about where that comes from. If you get bucked off a horse, you’re supposed to get back on and not let that continue to scare you, and that in itself is a form of trauma healing.
So if you’re a runner and you’ve had an injury and you got a huge setback and at some point you were told, well, maybe you’ll never walk again. Maybe you want to run again. Maybe you want to prove the doctor’s wrong. And what happens is our friends or relatives, the people who really care about us most who just want to protect us because they don’t want to see us hurt again, they try to hold us back.
But if you’ve got clearance from your doctor, if your physical therapist tells you that you’re healed enough to actually start running, then you have to believe them. They are the experts. You have to realize that what your family’s telling you, what your friends are telling you, what the people are telling you when they’re trying to support you is just to protect you.
So you can try as kindly as you want to try to explain it to them and try to let them in on the secret that you’re actually healed enough to run, that professionals with white coats and credentials have told you so, but sometimes that really doesn’t sell them on the idea.
A lot of times, if your doctor has cleared you, if your physical therapist has cleared you, if your trainer, athletic trainer has said it’s okay for you to start doing something, maybe you should just start doing it. Maybe you should get a little healing under your belt, a little recovery behind you and actually start running, and then break it to your friends and your family that you’re running just a little.
But don’t go tell them you did something crazy. Just break it to them easy. Because remember, when they watch you hurt and they watch you recover from that hurt, they watch you get through that trauma, it’s traumatic for them too and you don’t want to freak them out by telling them, “Hey, I just went and ran 10 miles today. I’m fine.” Because it can actually be scary for them. So keep their feelings in mind.
Make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Make sure you’re doing what your doctors tell you, and you’ll get back to running as quickly as possible.
So again, if you go leave a review, if you have one to write and you can send it to me with a question, that’d be great as well. And I’ll see you in the next training. And thanks again for listening to the Doc On The Run Podcast.
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