This may seem obvious, but it does warrant discussion. Being in great shape does not make you invincible.
As I've mentioned before, I recently had double hernia surgery with the full open method (rather than laparoscopically). I got in as good physical shape as I possibly could to try to aide and speed my recovery. I had developed strong abs and a solid core, with a six pack for the first time ever in my life. As a result, at my two week check up, the surgeon was really amazed at how much progress I had made, and told me I could start running at the six week mark. Awesome. That was Thursday, July 5th, meaning I'd be running in early August, and able to enjoy some summer runs.
Friday, July 6th, while sitting on the floor next to the tub that my son was having a bath in, I turned my torso toward him so I was looking about 70 degrees from where my legs were (basically, not quite looking dead on sideways). WOW. That hurt like crazy. The only way I could describe it was that someone had taken a dagger and shoved it in my pelvis on the right side. I thought perhaps my son had snuck a shiv into the tub and made a play to break out of our home. No dice. He only had a piece of soap in the shape of the letter "O" and a cup he kept putting the soap into and then dumping it out while yelling at the soap for being silly.
I didn't understand. I had been walking every day for the past 10 days, and had cut my pace down from about 22 minutes per mile to 12 minutes, and felt great. I had been doing the elliptical for about 30 minutes on low resistance, and had built up to moderate resistance without any pain.
I didn't have much pain at my surgical sites in general (unless I pressed on them or wore something fitting rather than loose/baggy), and had brought my body fat back down to about 8% (from a high of about 11% during my recovery due to a sedentary lifestyle and more bread and fruit than I typically eat, which was basically none). How was looking to my side causing so much pain? Worse yet, why wasn't the pain going away? Had I ripped a stitch? Had I aggravated a nerve?
I decided to take a break from PT, and increase my regime of icing my surgical site (as I had been doing a few times a day already). Unfortunately, the weekend saw the pain stay extremely intense, and get more frequent. I put a call into my surgeon on Monday, totally befuddled as to why I was in so much pain given how well I was doing and how strong I was overall and in the surgical area.
Her thinking was that this wasn't a ripped stitch, but an aggravated nerve. The prescription was to lay off all exertion and PT for a week and call her back. After a week, the severity had reduced a little, but the frequency was going up - I was in some kind of pain pretty much all the time. Her advice was to keep taking it slow, but to add walking back in (though not at a high pace. The running in August thing? Out. As much as that stinks, I'm ok with it. I'm more hoping for the 'no being stabbed constantly in August' thing instead.
Why did this happen, and with such a small movement? How could it have happened given where I was at? Simple. I'm not invincible. No matter how well I prepared for this, it's surgery on the human body. Heck, even if it wasn't surgery, I still could have injured myself with some stupid turn or other lame incident.
Watching the Olympics, I see the same message. I watched an amazing German gymnast basically fold his foot in half on a dismount in a qualifying round to try to get to the medal round. And he wasn't the only one. No matter what shape you're in, or how perfectly you train, you can still get hurt.
The point is, you can't think that, just because you're fit, nothing will happen to you. Whether we're talking about injuries, or eating a sundae every night and clogging your arteries with cholesterol from it. Be smart. Be safe. But remember, you're human, so be mindful. It's all part of how you enlighten.your.body.
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