Strava's depressing truths for all those who are injured

Logging on to Strava at the moment is a pretty depressing experience. When I upgraded to a premium account a few months ago, I did so in order to delve head first into the statistics of my running life, to analyse individual runs and to monitor my fitness and progress over time. What I didn't envisage was the prospect of getting injured and being presented with a demoralising daily assessment of my declining fitness. 

Opening the app today is, indeed, a lot like watching the news. I am shown a variety of graphs that deliver nothing but bad news. The line graph depicting my monthly fitness, for instance, has plummeted like the value of the travel industry in the wake of the coronavirus, while my monthly activities graph just reminds me how little I've done this month compared to last. My training log is empty and my weekly intensity graph is showing single digit figures, meaning that my training is on a par with a 90-year old.

So Strava and I aren't getting on at the moment. We have fallen out and, like Rachel and Ross from Friends, are now officially on a break.

I'm four weeks into my eight-week enforced hiatus and it's a struggle at the moment to find the positives from the situation. But there are a couple; being injured and seeing your fitness fall off a cliff does at least give you time to consider what your comeback might look like. Yes, the graphs are all pointing downwards at the moment, but therein lies a future challenge. How long will it take me to get back to my previous fitness level? This is oddly something that I am looking forward to discovering and, for which, I am prepared to forgive Strava for its weeks of betrayal.

Then there's the plank. Over the past few weeks I have been attempting to lengthen the amount of time I can plank for, and it's going well (more on that in a future post), despite my children's best attempts to put me off. But other than that, the positives are pretty thin on the ground. 

Not running, day after day and week after week, is incredibly hard. I definitely feel that my mental health has taken a bit of a kicking; I'm moodier, I'm irritable, my patience is wafer thin, I feel uninspired with my work and I feel more tired, more often. It has also given me a terrifying glimpse into what life in the long term might be like without running. What if I don't recover from this Achilles injury? What if that's it?

It doesn't bear thinking about. I can't spend the rest of my days on an exercise bike. 

So there's nothing for it. I have got to grit my teeth, get on with the next four weeks, ease myself back into it slowly and set my sights on a comeback goal for 2021.

Here's to one upwards curve that I'm looking forward to seeing next year.

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I'm now two weeks into my eight-week injury-enforced layoff, and I'm struggling. Not lacing up my trainers, locking on to a GPS signal and heading out on to the trails - especially on a Sunday - is proving far harder than I imagined. If this is cold turkey, then I'm the running-equivalent of Renton from Trainspotting, in desperate need of a hit and looking everywhere I can for an alternative high. 

The problem I have, however, is that there is no real alternative. The physio has told me not to overly stretch my Achilles while it mends, so that rules out most leg-based cardio; lane swimming during coronavirus times feels like sharing a Covid bath with strangers and my mountain bike is busying itself rusting in the garage. That leaves our indoor bike, an eBay-procured machine that has been used more often as a clothes horse than it has as a cycling aid.

But this is all I have and over the past fortnight, I have dusted it down, taken the saddle and attempted to pedal my way to a sweat. 

It has not gone well. The bike and I are not friends. For starters, my bum was not made with cycling in mind. Mother Nature's decision not to bless me with any padding of note to my rear has left me with saddle sore nether regions with every bike I have ever owned, and the indoor one is no different. 

The result has been several highly uncomfortable and, quite frankly, boring rides in my dining room. I have taken to watching TV as I pedal, but even this doesn't seem to make time go any faster on the bum-torturing device. Cycling indoors just doesn't give you the same feeling of effort and exhaustion that a good threshold run or hill session would. Staring at the wall or watching repeats of Top Gear also doesn't compare to blasting your way along a muddy trail or taking in a hard earned view from the top of your favourite hill.

Of course, the other issue with being injured is that wherever you go, you inevitably come across perfectly fit runners - with their wholly intact Achilles tendons - bouncing along the pavements or paths with a broad smile and a cheery 'good morning.' Like taking a dieting chocoholic on a tour of the Cadbury factory, forcing a reciprocal smile takes a Herculean effort.

So I have found myself being far grumpier than usual over the past two weeks. My wife will testify to this, as I have taken to moaning more than usual and have been eating peanut M&Ms by the kilo. Being forced to abstain from running for two months feels so unfair and it is only when you have it taken away from you in this manner, that you realise just how much you rely on it for your general wellbeing.

Without wanting to sound like Sting, running grounds me. It is the only thing that works to relieve the stresses and strains of life, literally allowing me to run off the physical manifestations of stress (the headaches and tight shoulders), as well as the psychological affects (the worries, the 'what ifs' and the 'I should haves' of life).

As Joni Mitchell once said: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."  

And as for the bike...anyone ever tried cycling with a cushion down your trousers?

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Strava's depressing truths for injured runners