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It's been a day shy of three months since I got the Achilles tendon sewn together.
I am not a professional athlete. A recreational strength trainee is how I generously describe myself.
There are no specific capacities that are non-negotiable requirements for me to do my job. And sure it does help when a coach does walk the talk when it comes to being consistent with training, rehab and just bouncing back quickly.
I made it a point to try and quickly get back to being able to do the things I knew I could. Take the stairs, ride a bike, walk around the gym coaching and carry stuff were the first things to tick off the list. Then came the rehab stuff like calf raises, heel drops, step ups etc. There was the strength stuff that wasn't too rough on the calf or ankle: the dips, pull ups, rows, squats, deadlifts and glute hams. And finally the harder things: single leg squats and one arm push ups.
There was a clear hierarchy of what I needed to work towards with vague timelines but the capacities were definitive. And I can't begin to talk about how important that has been as a source of motivation and benchmark.
When most people deal with pain or injury, their first goal is to not feel pain or not be injured. The latter is a nebulous goal. Is a lack of pain or ridding oneself of relative incapacity sufficiently ambitious? I think not.
I've always been happy with the idea that if and when one gets injured, despite training, it is wise for the injured to embrace it and crawl out of the pit as fast as one can. Towards whatever normal means to them. And the bar for normal has to be high, or languishing becomes the new normal. Training for me has been a tool to ensure that being physically capable is never the constraint to having a good time.
But the stakes are actually much higher. I now see being physically capable as the bare minimum. Table stakes in any conversation about quality of life.