“About 3 years ago I was in a lot of pain. I could barely move and I didn’t feel anywhere even if I could. I had a kind of arthritis where my bones were trying to fuse together and was developing serious anxiety. It hurt to sit, it hurt to walk and it even hurt to lie down so I would wake up in agony at night if I moved. Over the next couple of years I tried and failed to treat these with lifestyle change and medications – I was beginning to give up on life.
The day after lockdown ended in 2020 I was feeling pretty frustrated with my unchanging situation and was remembering periods of my life when I used to be happy. It just clicked – the happiest period of my life was when I tried jogging every night to de-stress at university. The next day I went out and bought brand new shoes and running gear determined to emulate my joyful days again. At first, it didn’t really work out. I could only hop a few steps at a time before I was nearly in tears from the pain. I stubbornly made myself run/shuffle about 500 metres every night powered by a goal: that one day I will run until I’m puffed and not have to stop because the pain made me give up.
I battled with this for about 3 weeks without noticing things getting better or worse, just pushing through it. However, one morning I got up and realised my first steps of the day didn’t hurt. I still had a limp but I was filled with hope as I was walking nearly pain free for the first time in years. I extended my nightly struggle up to 1000 metres and week by week started feeling more flexible. After around 6 months I found myself smiling every time I ran and didn’t feel pain anymore in my daily life, just a bit sore after I pushed myself at night. My Dad was impressed with my progress and bought me a Garmin watch to document my progress, this is where I really started to consider myself a runner and began looking for local running groups.
I spotted the Frontrunner group and joined a couple of their training sessions in town. I was overwhelmed with the love and compassion shown by these athletes. Everyone supported everyone no matter their ability and carefully encouraged each other to improve. Their main training runs were at Lake Mangamahoe (a muddy/hilly trail) but I was nervous about going off-road because I didn’t want to get my nice running shoes dirty. Emma from the group sorted me out with a specialised trail shoe in black (my main shoes were completely white) so I didn’t care about getting them muddy. I now run with the group on and off road at least twice a week on top of my own training runs.
It’s been about a year since I made the optimistic decision to try running again and it has completely transformed my life. I can now complete 30K+ distances without intimidation and I’m looking forward to doing my first marathon soon.”
Joel @mystic_guardian
(New Plymouth)
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Portraits of Runners + their stories
@RunnersNZ
