Where the Fear Has Gone, There Will Be Nothing

Once upon a time, when I was in high school, I was very much in love with Frank Herbert’s Dune series. Maybe I still am, although I haven’t read them through in quite a while.

Still, there are a lot of things about the books that I still know by heart. One of them, corny as it may be, is the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear. It goes like this:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

I’m not that ashamed to admit that I have thought of this at times when I’m afraid. Sometimes it helps, but I’ve found that it’s most useful in acute times of fear or moments when, at that exact second, I need to distract myself, like if I’m trying to run up a mountain at mile 11 of a half marathon. It’s usually not so much that I need to think of those specific words; it’s just that those are some that I happen to have memorized.

Here is a thing I hate about navigating an injury: it makes me afraid.

Right now I haven’t run for a week because of the pain that reared up in my foot not too long ago. I’m trying to rehab it, and at the same time I’ve been (hopefully) building strength in my hip flexors. The exercises are making me nervous, because the PT instructed me to do lateral walks until the sides of my butt (hip flexors?) burn, twice a day. Well, I’ve been exceedingly careful to do these with correct form. I maintain the tension on the TheraBand all the time. I carefully bend forward. I keep my toes pointed slightly out.

But the first day was the only day when I “felt the burn.” Now, even when I do 120 reps on both sides, or 130, I just don’t feel it. My legs are shaking and it seems hard, but there is no burning. I don’t want to go too much further after my legs get tired (usually around 75 reps) but what else is there to do? So, hopefully my hip flexors are still getting stronger.

I have been riding a recumbent bike instead of running. Last week I went to the gym twice and rode for 1.5 hours each time. On Monday I rode that bike for two hours. Today I spent an hour riding my spin bike. I’m sick…to…death of riding bikes. My muscles are not accustomed, so I find myself going back and forth between “too easy” and “too hard.” Oh, and the pedaling…all the pedaling. The recumbent bike makes my back sore. Complain, complain. It has a nice screen on which it makes it look like I’m riding through Arizona and California and all that jazz, but no matter how much I ignore the screen and read YA fiction I’d still rather be running.

So this afternoon I’m going to go out for a run, and I’m nervous about it. You could say I’m afraid.

I’m afraid because I really, really (I would almost say desperately) want this to go well. I want there to not be pain in my foot after 1.7 miles. I want there not to be pain in my foot afterward, in the evening. I’m afraid because I don’t know what will happen, and so I’m trying not to be afraid because there’s nothing I can do about it, and so it is wasted emotion. The only thing I can do is give it a try.

But either it will go well, or it won’t, and if it doesn’t I’ll probably need to take another week off and…keep riding the bike. And first-world problem though it may be I dread the thought of spending another month riding a damned (sorry!) recumbent bike. I’m afraid to be disappointed. And more frustrated.

My fear is underscored with irritation because I already did this once in the last six months. And I did it so positively and calmly and I took it as a good time to rest, and I handled it with far more grace than my past selves would have.

Except when I did it before I didn’t have all the information. I didn’t know it was probably because of my hip flexors, and so that time was wasted too. I could have been fixing this already.

And I am also irritated because I want to be able to work harder than this. I want to be working on getting faster right now instead of losing fitness every day. I am so sick of running slowly. This winter was optimal for gaining speed instead of losing it, but no! I am still stuck riding a bike and then trundling along at a slow jog. I wanted more than this for the beginning of 2012.

I know that in the long run it is probably best to take the time off and heal but I have to say that I find it tiring and maddening and I’m becoming fairly surly about the whole situation. I have the time, but at the same time I absolutely do not have the time for this and I’m sick of it wasting, wasting away. And of course, it’s all my fault for giving up the PT exercises from before. Note to self: don’t do that again.

For now all there is to do is let the nervousness have its moment and then leave it behind, and later when I know the outcome of this run (isn’t it funny how every run becomes the most important when you can’t…or, at least shouldn’t…be running) I can look back and see its path, if it was justified. It probably won’t be, but still, where it went there won’t be anything. I’ll still be here, though.