I've had a lot of random injuries over the last few years. After having plantar fasciitis, ignoring it, having achilles tendonitis (and ignoring that too) and subsequently needing to take about six months off CrossFit before it actually felt better (and playing pretty much a full season of hockey in pain and unable to take a full stride) I learned my lesson about ignoring pain.
Ironically, this didn't end my bouts with random injuries. My achilles started getting better last March/April, when I got orthotics (I now don't use the orthotics, but that's another story). I was back at CrossFit and started off my hockey season not in pain. It was great. Then in November I was playing indoor soccer (my first game, actually) and another player ran through my leg along the boards. This was one of the few times that my incredibly tight muscles were of benefit to me, as my physio believed the tightness of my quad saved my ACL. Instead, I tore my meniscus and part of my quad in my left leg. I missed about three weeks of hockey and from there played in varying degrees of pain for the rest of the season. I returned to CrossFit in February (three months off). Man did I suck. One of our trainers, Jonny, told me it would probably take me as long as I was off to get my leg back to where it should be. That was probably an accurate statement as it wasn't until May that I started feeling comfortable with many movements again (pretty much any squat).
I've been trying to treat my body right and stay injury free, so my frustration level was pretty high that I've managed to get injured once again. We were breaking out of our zone in ball hockey and our centre tossed the ball up so I was trying to run onto it. Running, running, running, PAIN. I haven't actually felt that much pain from an injury before. I tried to put weight on it and it was excruciating. Thankfully the physio who also happens to go to SPARK had an opening the next day. A few needles later and I could at least limp along and we had confirmed that I hadn't done any structural damage to my knee. Instead, it was my quad and hamstring.
Fast forward a week and I'm walking a lot better and regaining range of motion every day. Laurie encouraged me to keep working out while it was healing and work within what I can do. This has meant a lot of rowing. I can't really do our dynamic warm up, or ladder work, or speed work, so while everyone else is warming up I'm typically rowing about 3k. If there's running in a WOD, that's more rowing. Lunges have been subbed for squats. Pull ups I've been doing on the shorter bar so that I don't hurt myself jumping down (which is annoying as I'm just tall enough that I can really kip into another pull up on the short bar without catching my feet on the ground, so my pull ups are pretty much one at a time). I've been able to do all the other movements that have come up. There's been a few comments about maybe taking time off instead of coming, but I would rather go and do what I can. It takes me a long time to get into a habit, but it really does not take me any time at all to break one. I'm used to doing 5-6 workouts a week. If I stop, I'll get used to doing none just as easily and then have to break that habit.
Not to mention that I don't want to take six steps back again. It's bad enough that I can't lift right now (particularly considering that I bought a membership at an Oly gym the day before I injured myself) but I don't want to give up everything. And finally, when I don't go to SPARK I miss the people. The community there is really great, and being around the people makes me laugh, smile, and generally helps me to just unwind. It's a great stress release, and I don't want to lose that either.
