It's what's called a "training error"

It's said your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness, and one of mine is proving I can do something. The good part of that means I dig my heels in and pull out more effort than I thought was possible, and then exceed my expectations — like taking logic in the summer and ending up with a C+ after I got a mark of 43% on the first test.

The not-so-good part of it? Well, that's when I end up paying some kind of price after, the cost of which others may say wasn't worth the value.

The most recent case is a hike I took on Sunday. In case anyone's new, I broke my leg in three areas at the beginning of July, with two of them being in pretty much the worst spots imaginable. Before I got the cast on, the doctor's initial prognosis was four-and-a-half months of no weight-bearing (which would have brought me close to Christmas), and there wasn't even any talk of ligamentous damage included; it didn't matter, given the immediate scenario.

To say I was unhappy with that news — and with everything — would be like saying Toronto sometimes gets a little bit of traffic on its streets. There was no way I was going to accept the news, and I could see on the faces of family and friends they thought I was nuts, to put it mildly, about my own plan of healing.

I don't want to say none of that mattered because it did, but just not enough to impede in my stubbornness and plan of action. One of those was to go on a looong hike 16.5 weeks, which, at that point, if I'd listened to the original orthopedic surgeon, should have been roughly the point where I'd be starting to partially bear weight.

But rehab schedule or not, I was going on this hike even if it meant my feet would bleed and I'd be limping across the finish line, 16.3km later. My physiotherapist wasn't so crazy about the idea (and even asked me after how much of the hike was me wanting to prove a point to other people) but long ago resigned herself to the fact that I'd do exactly what I want come hell or high water, and — to her credit — didn't frown or sigh, but just gave me exercises to work on and instructed me to walk longer and longer distances to build up to it.

Did I do that? Well, not exactly. You see, I hate walking. I find it extremely boring and slow and would rather hop on my bicycle or scooter, or even just avoid errands and stay in. So, I didn't work up to it and I didn't reach a distance of 8k or 10k like she wanted me to, and I knew I was setting myself up for something that could potentially go catastrophically wrong. To really help things along, I took my roommate's dog with me, a 65lb mutt who just loves the outdoors and is a solid pack of muscle. No sense in doing things halfway, eh?

The hike went fine. I felt fine. A couple people pointed out I was limping, which I wasn't aware of at all, but my knee felt good, I wasn't breathing hard during any point (even though the group organizer was!), and the only persistent thought in my head was keeping the damn dog from pulling too hard on the leash. I even thought to myself, Man, am I ever going to sleep well tonight after walking for 17km.

Hah.

I actually felt fine — more than fine — that day and though the dog was still quite keyed up (it was a provincial park, so he wasn't allowed off leash and couldn't run his pretty little brains out), I thought, hey, looks like I just pulled off another impossible! Cue to the next day, when I woke up and found my right foot, my opposite foot, fer chrissakes, hurt like mad every time I took a step. The only respite was to stand on tiptoe on that foot when I walked, but that would have looked incredibly weird in public so I merely swore in my head every half-second when I had to put weight on it. Even worse, the tendon that runs along the top of the foot to the big toe (hallucis longus) hurt on both feet every time I curled up my toes to lift my foot up for another step.

Is there a lesson in here? Perhaps, to other people. I set out what I wanted to accomplish: to not fall down, to never lag behind, and to finish the hike no matter what. So, something like a foot that sends waves of pain up every time I step on it is small in comparison to everything else I did, which was doing what I wanted, when I wanted.

The foot pain? I know that'll go away; it's starting to already. My knee? It's already in tenuous shape and the ligaments are such that a step here or pivot there could set them off. But, and this is a big but, I have to live my life the way that feels right for me, even if that means undertaking things that seem crazy/stupid/ludicrous/excessively risky to others.

Also, here's a picture of me with the dog from the hike (see how the leash isn't relaxed!) taken by one of the other hikers.