Yesterday was the first cool morning of the fall session. And I didn’t stretch well enough — soooooo — I pulled my right quadricep (thigh muscle). It didn’t feel particularly good yesterday. In fact, it really smarted. And it didn’t feel particularly good today.
I have been an athlete in some form or another for most of my life. I know when to rest, when to seek medical treatment and when to push through the pain. Today, I pushed through the pain.
And for the most part, I did fine. Did it feel good? No. But the way I look at it, it hurt less than open-heart surgery. I knew I could do the work today. So I pressed forward.
Where I tripped up was Clark’s session. We did some exercise where we had to try to touch our elbows to our knees while running in place. For some reason, it hurt 100% more than any exercise. I felt like someone was hitting a deep bruise with a baseball bat. I compensated so I wouldn’t aggravate my injury — thus I didn’t have a very fluid range of motion. Clark thought it looked funny and pulled me out to do my exercise in front of the whole line. I laughed it off because I knew I looked funny — but it hurt like hell.
If you are alive, you’ll have to play through pain. It may be heartache, depression or physical. Most of it is out of your control. But what you do control is how you react to it. I could have made an excuse this morning. Instead, I plowed through it. And I got a little mentally tougher.
We live in a vicious, broken world. So you have to keep pushing when life hurts. You train more than just your muscles when you workout. You train your mental toughness, too. That toughness carries over into the rest of your life, too. You learn to laugh it off.