I finished up last week with 22.56 miles of hiking and missed my weekly goal by 2.44 miles. However, I finished the week with some strong lumbers and occasional running. Sadly, by Sunday, my right foot said, “piss off!” and I was hit with some raging plantar fasciitis.
Shit.
Monday and Wednesday’s hikes went fine this week, but I was more concentrated on the heel pain than the trail, it wasn’t fun in the least, and I was left hobbling around most of the day.
I believe that switching from the Hoka Anacapa to the Speedgoat 5 reduced the heel stack, and after 800+ miles of hiking, the sudden switch and increased efforts screwed my heel.
This is all pretty frustrating; I hope to hit 1,000 miles by my birthday in mid-July, and I, of course, have been enjoying my near-daily lumbers through the woods for my mental well-being as much as physical.
A few hours later…
Wednesday afternoon, I hobbled up to the O.G. Mindbender’s office for my weekly mind flush, and we got talking about how “Old Jason” would react to this setback; Old Jason would have said ‘fuck it,’ I’m too out of shape to even walk, I guess I’ll take up Tik Tok dancing like everyone else.” Or I would plow through the pain, not wanting to appear to give up or be “lazy” and would make the injury even worse. THEN I would give up on the whole thing and be a fucking prick about it like it was someone else’s fault.
While new Jason isn’t complete yet, I did stop short of the hard-to-be-around misanthropic thinking I inherited. And in talking with the O.G., it became clear that with my mind already investigating heel stacks, stretching, icing, and taking a few GUILT-FREE days off from hiking, I am thinking/living much more in the present, and yes, as corny as it can sound, “learning to be kind to myself.”
One simple thing that always seems to help me focus and see some light in my conversations with the O.G. is when she asks, “If Brennan was going through an issue like this, would I shame him? Would I tell him to man up? Would I heap guilt on him and tell him he will get fat if he doesn’t lumber through the pain? Would I tell him that all that hiking he did was pointless?
And, of course, the answers are all no; I would not treat him like that. I would be supportive, loving, and kind. Yet, by default, my mind is perpetually set to Shame mode regarding myself. But it’s getting better.
Looking back, it’s ironic that as I lumbered and hobbled down the trail on Wednesday morning, I saw a bright red object along the trail. I assume it was a discarded Coke can, but it was the painted rock pictured above.
I don’t know who paints rocks and leaves them randomly in the woods, and even as I, for some reason, photographed it, a large part of me mocked the words Bee Kind. Yet, a few hours later, I sat in the O.G. Mindbender’s office, fully recognizing that being kind to yourself is probably THE biggest step you can make towards unfucking yourself. That there is NOTHING wrong with loving and being kind to yourself.
As I said, I’m a work in progress, and right now, I am in the “tolerating and heavy petting” phase of unfucking my mind, but just like that 1,000-miles by July 14th goal, I’ll get there. But first, I need to ice my foot.
Later.