The Fear Was Never The Injury

I used to be a pole vaulter. A knee injury ended that, and running filled the space where vaulting used to be. But running was different. It was new. It was fun. I had no comparisons for myself, no pressure. I've trained for everything from the mile to the half marathon since. And somewhere along the way, slowly, pressure got added. I wanted to see what I could really do. I coach a lot of runners who started the same way I did. Running for fun, no pressure, and then good enough that it stopped feeling that way.

I'm training for a 5k right now. A few weeks ago, mid-interval, my knee flared up, and the fear wasn't about the knee. It was that I might have to run slower than I wanted, and what that would say about me as a coach: that I'd be disappointing my runners, the people around me, myself.

The runners who reach out to me almost always describe the same fear at first. Getting hurt. Missing race day. Rehabbing and repeat. That's the version they know how to say out loud.

But that's just the surface fear. It's not about the injury. It's about wanting something big and not getting it, and what that might mean about them. A coach they're trying not to disappoint. A partner. Usually themselves, and nobody actually asked that of them. But when the injury disappears and the fear doesn't, that's when they get lost.

I don't tell people not to worry about it. I don't think that's true, and it wouldn't help anyway. The job is turning the fear into something they can use instead of something that runs the show.

Because that fear means you care. But the race was never actually part of your identity. It's okay to have big goals. It's okay to want to be proud. The important thing is separating your goals from your identity and knowing that injury, failure, and frustration are all part of the process.

-Eliana