The Running Fall that Derailed a Runner and a Writer

A little more than a week ago, I was on a trail race when I suddenly took a bad fall.  After hitting the ground, I knew immediately my race was over.  The pain in my right shoulder was excruciating.

I have fallen often on these races and usually just get up, walk off the pain and start running again. But this pain was different.  An x-ray confirmed my suspicions: I had broken the humerus bone in my right shoulder.  I am right-handed, so not only did this mean I couldn’t finish the day’s race; this was an injury that was going to hinder my everyday activities.

I prepared myself to make the necessary adjustments for the next few months. No running or races. There would be no driving, great difficulty sleeping, no cooking, and no washing dishes (Honestly, I was able to adjust to this rather easily.) In addition, many of the little things that we all take for granted—such as showering, brushing my teeth, and yes, even going to the bathroom—were going to be much more difficult. While all these things are frustrating, the thing that surprised and upset me the most was my inability to write.

This is not just the inability to use my right hand on the keyboard, although that was the first domino to fall. I realized that there were two options to write. The first would be to hunt and peck with my left hand. That’s obviously a very slow option, though since I am a “hunt and peck” typist now, that’s not as drastic a change as you might think. The other option was to use the “dictate” feature in Word and instead of having the words flow from my fingers, have them flow from my lips.

First, I tried just using my left hand – really just my left index finger – to type. That immediately proved to be frustrating. While I was able to answer emails, it took a lot longer than I wanted. It was like driving to a major event that you are late for and getting stuck behind a tractor-trailer going exceedingly slow uphill with no passing lanes for miles. The thoughts and ideas started backing up in my mind. It was a pileup of jumbled thoughts. While I loved some of the ideas, I ended up walking away from the traffic jam in my head.

Next up was the dictation feature. I thought this would be great. Instead of my fingers putting my thoughts down it would be my lips. Surprisingly, this was even more frustrating. I tried dictating a blog entry but there were times when I had to pause to find the right word and stopped talking. Something was being lost in translation from my mouth. I looked at what I had “written” and it was awful. The writing was so stilted and rigid. It was not even salvageable with editing.

Oh yes, editing. This is the other frustration not having use of my right hand. I am embarrassingly clumsy just moving the mouse with my left hand. While I always have a final work proofed, I have enough pride that I want the draft to be readable. This was not readable.

Since you are reading this you must be wondering what I did. First of all, I realized that there is pace for each writer and that the fingers and the brain work in unison. Sometimes the thought that you originally had comes out differently as you type it – in effect, you’re editing as you commit words to paper.  

You don’t want all your ideas to be trapped in that traffic jam in your head because you can’t get them out fast enough. My fall may have halted many things that I took for granted in life. However, it did ignite one thing in me—the desire to write stories about facing failure, coping with limits and making a comeback. I remember distinctly that as I was taking the painful 3.5 mile walk out of the forest after I fell, the thought occurred to me that this was a great story that I needed to write about.

I am old enough to remember when writing was an extremely time-consuming process. This was before there were laptops and the word processor. For me, typing an article took several steps. First, I wrote it down with pen and paper. Then I typed it up. After which I edited it and typed it again. Even then many of us needed to use a product called “Wite Out” to paint over mistakes and correct them. Deciding to move a paragraph from one place to another meant retyping the whole document. So, writing started as very arduous chore. I needed to adjust back to an earlier time.

To help myself adjust, I took a lesson from my running experience. I am an unusual runner. Most runners settle on a specific type of race and distance. They may do 5Ks, half marathons, marathons, or ultra-marathons. They don’t deviate too much from their comfort zone. I am different. Last year I ran anywhere from a 5K to 66-hour multiday run. From trail races to road races.  The key to adjusting to this variety of races is adjusting your pace. On a 5K I am flying, while during a multi-day race, I take my time and even sleep. So, I am used to adjusting my pace.

My problem in writing was that I was trying to write at a 5K pace when I needed to be going at a much slower pace. Pretty much an ultra-marathon pace. I went to my left-hand hunt and peck method. Yes, it was arduous and frustrating but like rehabbing from a physical injury in running, you have to start somewhere. There is one other thing that is similar to finding new way of writing, which is similar to coming back from a running injury. After I had completed a long arduous comeback from a knee injury in running, I realized what a gift it was to run. I appreciated that running had become part of my identity.

The same is true about writing. While I will never be a best-selling author or someone who is remembered for their graceful prose, it is still part of who I am.  It is worth working hard at to keep it in my life. I did not fully realize this until my fall.

It is not until you face the loss of something and realize that it is part of you that you put a concerted effort into getting it back into your life. You are not only willing to be frustrated, but take the frustration as a good sign.

I am quite frustrated and a bit down since my bad fall in the woods. Yet knowing what my goals are and why I need to achieve them provides me with motivation, patience and contentment on this challenging journey ahead.