What have I lost? Or what have I gained…

On dropping the *should* | On why I am not bike-packing or running this week | being reckless with my body isn’t an option

A one night bike-packing trip last August

I *should* be in Norway recovering from a 100 mile race now. I also *should* be getting myself to the train station and heading to Edinburgh for the start of the Rapha Pennine Rally. But I’m not doing either. I am about to start unpacking for the bike trip and instead pack for a solo few days in the Lakes District.

*Should* hasn’t been a helpful word in the last few years. I shouldn’t have got ill, I tell myself. I shouldn’t still get upset about the deaths of my Dad and Brother. I shouldn’t need knee replacements when I’m so young, is something I hear a lot. But the *should* transports me away from what is. How do I start accepting and moving forward when I am constantly telling myself this shouldn’t have happened?

In another universe I don’t have osteoarthritis, I don’t have one knee that’s been replaced, and I have travelled to Norway, with Marcus by my side, to complete the Lofoten 100 mile race.

It’s the last race I have pulled out of, and it hurts a little. I entered this race in 2020, while I was in the midst of chronic fatigue. It felt like an act of hope, that by the next year I would be back running, back racing and able to compete in one of the most beautiful races I had seen. Lofoten looks like a dream, with mountains rising to make islands from the sea. It had also been an expensive decision, but I felt like I needed to make that investment in hope.

I didn’t take out insurance other than travel insurance. Which proved useless when the race told us all non-Norwegians would be prohibited from travelling the first year due to covid regulations. I was slightly relieved as I had still been ill and unable to train. It gave me another year to train. There was a period in the summer 2021 where I had no chronic fatigue, and my future as a runner and running coach seemed like a dream coming true, literally, I had been dreaming of being well for years. Before I realised the slight ache in my quads, and the feeling I hadn’t been able to bend my legs properly for a couple of years now, was going to be something serious.

It turned out I had advanced osteoarthrosis, with bone rubbing on bone throughout my knees. A future with surgery, no running, and no high mountains was spelled out by my orthopaedic team.

Post knee replacement in Janaury

I entered the Rapha Pennine Rally, a 320-mile, 5-day, non-competitive rally, back around the time of my first knee replacement. I naively thought that cycling would be fairly easy as part of my recovery, as everyone had told me I would be able to do it. It took a few weeks to first sit on a stationary bike after my operation. I tried to do one turn of the pedals. It was impossible. Over the next few weeks, I built up to one full turn. It felt like my new knee was clunking as I managed to pedal.

In the meantime, my quad had wasted away to look and feel like there was no muscle in them. I looked down, at the concave thighs coming to the swollen scarred knee below. Recovery was going to be harder than I had thought.

It wasn’t until the end of April, and a trip to Scotland that I took my knee on its first mountain. It was a slow painful descent but I felt like there was some life coming back to my quads on the ascent.

After that I had planned to get out on my mountain bike, but with extra work taking me out of the house for long days or trips and running the rest of my businesses, it was pushed down the list of priorities, Until there was no time left.

I had prepped and planned as if I was starting the Pennine Rally, I didn’t really have any other excuse apart from my fitness. It was Saturday night, waking up in a panic at 1.30am and not being able to get back to sleep until 5am, I went through the routes of each day on OS map app. Such a beautiful route, but the pressure of 100km+ a day, when I hadn’t been on the bike this year, was too much of an unknown. I didn’t want to be reckless with my body, my health. I have rebuilt it too many times before. I don’t take sleeping through a night and getting out of bed for granted anymore.

Deliberating with friends on a walk yesterday

After a lot of deliberation, and sorry to those around me that had to hear it all, I decided to put out of the Pennine Rally yesterday too.

There is still the word popping up; should I be doing it? Should I be fitter? Should I feel bad for letting people down, and wasting entry fees? Should I have just gone and at least given it a try?

I don’t think *should* helps me here, or anywhere, it hasn’t for a while.

I focus on the new space I have. It’s not always easy, I know, but there’s always something to find. I can still go to mountains with my tent, and please myself without any pressure. I have had the space to start a podcast, to write a book. I have found the space that comes with having an unwritten future. Dropping the *should* allows me to find joy in the body I have, despite the pain and limits at the moment. It allows me to see what *is* and what I need.

So I probably should press send and head to the Lakes…