I have a feeling that I will be writing a few posts on the lessons I learned from my stress fracture. Isn’t wasn’t a terrible injury, but God knew that I needed it to change some things in my life.

First of all, since 2006, I have lost about 40-ish pounds (…don’t own a scale and I’m not going to share pant sizes on the blog), and I used running as the main way to keep the weight off. I have run about 25-30 miles a week for the past 3 years, so running was really a main focus on my life.

A year ago at this time, I can remember thinking about all the horrible things that would happen if I took more than 2 days off of running. I’d lose fitness, put on weight, and just be an all-around lazy person and NOT a real “runner”.

Thankfully, in the summer of 2009 I stumbled across healthy living bloggers–and specifically the runners! I started learning more about running and fueling properly. I have been interested in nutrition since my brother’s illness in the summer of 2006, but it was so good to learn from others with the same physical needs as me.

I also was seeing a stress on healthy body image. Shortly after I broke my foot was the “Fat Talk Free Week”. I decided to participate because I knew that I had to accept the condition of my body–which really meant accepting my fractured metatarsals. But I told myself it would go beyond just one week. I wouldn’t mope or cry about not running or “feel fat” at all during my recovery. Maya Angelou once said “If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change your attitude.” That’s the place where I found myself. By God’s grace I was able to adjust my attitude and survive the weeks of recovery (and not kill my husband, either).

And now that I’m on this side of it, what can I tell you? Well, the obvious one is that 6 weeks of rest and subsequent weeks with very little running did NOT make me fat. I doubt I even gained any weight. Maybe a pound or two, but that could have been the holiday cookies. But that’s not the point. The point is that I can give my body the breaks that it needs (not the kind found in my metatarsals). Rest isn’t evil…it is GOOD and it is necessary. I had worn myself out and suffered for it. God blessed me with the injury before I could do something even more destructive to my body.

Cross training may be boring, but for a runner it is, once again, GOOD and necessary. I think I’m going to be doing a lot more of it. Who knows…maybe there’s a tri in my future?

Rest and cross training. Right now my mind is still trying to come to terms with it, but my body, especially my feet, are realllllly thankful for the lesson!

Have you suffered any sports injuries? What did you learn from them?