Achilles Healing

Writing is an unnatural act. I've been doing it professionally for some twenty-six years, and I still have a hard time facing a blank page, or worse, a blank box on a blog. Too many thoughts scurrying around to focus on any one of them. And no copy editors to clean up the mess. Nevertheless, the Titanic sails again...

About two weeks ago, after spending the weekend handing out magazines at the San Franscisco Green Festival, I drove back to Oregon and returned my rental car. (My pick-up gets ridiculously bad milage but I can't live without it yet, so I rent high milage cars for long drives.) Anyway, I was walking back to my truck when, ouch!. I couldn't walk anymore. Something in the back of my heel suddenly made its presence known in a remarkably painful way.

And part of me was relieved. I couldn't walk and therefore I couldn't train anymore. The silly quest for the Olympics was over, and it wasn't my fault. I hadn't done anything stupid. I hadn't done anything at all. But my body had decided to quit. Thank God!

But it was also puzzling. If your achilles tendon is torn, it is supposed to feel as if you have been hit by a bat. Then the tendon rolls up like a window shade -- and you are finished...at least for six months or so. But there was no whack at the back of my heel. Just excruciating pain.

Ah, the micro tear, it turned out. Just a reminder that life- altering pain is just a step away. The good thing about training is that it keeps the body in healing mode, so I was able to be back in the boat in a couple of days and pain free within a week (with help from a chiropractor and an osteopath...)

So what is the lesson in all this? For me it is being reminded what a blessing it is to be able to be embarked on an adventure. Heck, life is an adventure. It is so easy to forget that... Thankfully, the reminder can be only a random step away.

Posted by Stephen Kiesling on Nov 25, 2007 at 11:55AM