The Knock-Knock Plot

    I’m not supposed to go running today. It’s funny, in my life I’ve run a lot — enough to have crossed the country east-to-west at least twice, since I took it up seriously about seven years ago — and I’ve enjoyed it at various times, but never before have I experienced the feeling of wanting to go running, being physically capable of going running, and having to stop myself doing it. Even in my best shape, right before my second marathon, days when I didn’t have to go running seemed to dawn a little earlier and brighter than other ones. The act of running could be enjoyable or exhilarating or fun or painful or exhausting or whatever, but I never, ever looked forward to it. Never stopped myself from doing it. I always had to force myself to do it.

    My perspective on that has changed over the last five months. I wrecked my left ankle jogging down a gentle slope on a seamless sidewalk back in early October. For reasons I have never been able to piece together, I put my foot down sideways, and then brought my entire weight down on it. I couldn’t walk without crutches for a week. I couldn’t walk without pain for a month. For ages and ages, I could hardly do anything at all. It was then that I began to feel jealous of people I saw out running. You know the people — they’re bounding healthily down the street, trim and neon-clad, enjoying the vim and excitement of using the body. I envied these people so completely that it was a physical sensation — I could feel in my legs and arms the urge to run after them. But I couldn’t.

    Sometime in January, about three months after injuring myself, I started running again. I started very slowly — both in pace and in distance — but it never quite felt right. The ankle didn’t hurt, but it felt stiff and weird, and I was scared to go more than three miles or so at a given time. Then, about six weeks ago, I rolled it again. Very gently, and it didn’t hurt much, but it was a reality check. I was not ready to be running. I had to stop. But at least then I had obvious physical symptoms telling me no — stiffness, a little bit of pain. I returned to rehabbing, which involves doing the most absurd exercises in the world: first, you stand on one foot for sixty seconds; then you bend at the knee, still standing on one foot, ten times; then you hop forward and then backward, still on one foot, ten times. Maybe that description doesn’t do justice to how dumb it feels. Because that rehab exercise requires almost not physical exertion. But it is, simultaneously, incredibly hard. You fall over a lot. You look dumb, hands planted on your hips as you play what looks like a version of stationary hopscotch.

    Last week, I decided to give it another go. It had been five months since the injury, five weeks since the re-injury. I had no pain when walking or standing for long periods. Surely it would be fine. Wouldn’t it?

    It wasn’t. The ankle felt weak as I ran, and then throbbed all through the night. I had to stop again. It was reluctant — I went out one more time on it before I decided I had to stop — but I did it. It sucked.

    The major problem with actual life is that it has no plot structure. One’s life can consist of nothing but rising action with no crescendo, nothing but incident without resolution, all denouement without real crisis. People who seem like main characters end up as bit players. The love interest moves back to Pittsburgh, or gets back together with an ex, or is simply surprised to find that you consider them a love interest at all. (Or the unnerving opposite, when you discover that some coworker or friendly acquaintance has cast you in a major role in their life.) People die before they resolve their estrangements. Things get rapidly out of hand and then disappear. You rehab your ankle, and rehab it, and rehab it, and it never really gets better. If this were short story that third try at running would have been lovely, pain-free . . . and then its consequences would have been emotionally devastating, somehow. We call that the knock-knock plot. It’s also a solution for insanity.

    But I went running earlier this week, and for some reason, everything actually was fine. I ran four miles. No pain, no sprains, no lingering ache afterwards. Then I did it again the next day. And again yesterday. Which is how I find myself here: there is no immediate, physical reason why I shouldn’t go running today. Everything feels fine — better than fine. Great. I can finally take pleasure in the movement of my legs again.

    But. I have been told again and again: the easiest way to re-injure your ankle is to over-exert yourself when you come back. (Second-easiest: give up on rehab when you feel better, which . . . yeah, I’ve been doing that, too.) I have to stay off it. I have to stay off it today so I can use it tomorrow. And it’s driving me insane.