Rebuilding confidence after injury
I think I underestimated how much of running is about confidence. Not just fitness or consistency, but that quiet assumption that your body will do what you expect it to do. Before the ankle issue, I didn’t really think about it. I’d go out for a run, and it would feel fairly predictable. Maybe not always easy, but consistent enough that I didn’t question it.
That’s changed a bit over the past few weeks. I’ve been running more regularly again, which is good, but it doesn’t feel quite the same as it did before. Physically, things are mostly fine. The ankle isn’t causing any major problems, but it’s still in the back of my mind more than I’d like it to be. Every now and then, there’s a slight awareness of it, and that’s enough to shift how I’m thinking while I’m running.
It’s not stopping me, but it is making me more cautious. I’ve noticed that I’m holding back slightly, even on runs that should feel comfortable. Not consciously deciding to slow down, but just not pushing things in the same way. There’s a bit of hesitation there, which wasn’t there before. I think that’s the confidence side of it.
When everything is working well, you don’t think twice about increasing your pace or adding an extra kilometre. Now, there’s a bit more thought involved. I’m more aware of how things feel, and I’m less inclined to push past that if something doesn’t feel quite right. It’s probably a sensible approach, but it does change the experience slightly. What’s been interesting is how similar this feels to some of the things I think about in my PhD. A lot of my research focuses on attention and performance, particularly how what you focus on can affect how you perform under pressure. When you’re confident, attention tends to be more external and automatic. You’re focused on the outcome, not the mechanics. As soon as something feels uncertain, attention shifts. You start focusing more internally, paying attention to movements that would normally just happen without thinking. That’s been happening quite a lot with running recently. I’m noticing how my foot is landing, whether I’m distributing weight evenly, how my ankle feels at different points in the run. It’s not necessarily helpful, but it’s difficult to avoid.
At the same time, I can see that this is part of the process of rebuilding. Confidence doesn’t just come back immediately once something feels “better”. It takes a bit of time, and probably a number of runs where nothing goes wrong, before things start to feel normal again. So I’m trying not to rush that. Instead of focusing on getting back to where I was, I’m focusing more on consistency. Getting out regularly, keeping things fairly steady, and letting confidence rebuild gradually rather than forcing it. It’s less about hitting specific distances or paces, and more about getting comfortable with running again.
I’ve also been trying not to overinterpret every small sensation. That’s easier said than done, especially when you’ve been dealing with an injury, but not every slight feeling means something is wrong. Part of this is learning to distinguish between normal variation and something that actually needs attention. That’s still a work in progress. Outside of running, everything else is ticking along as usual. PhD work is picking up again after the slower start in January, and things are starting to feel a bit more structured. In a way, that’s helpful. It means running doesn’t need to carry quite as much weight as a way of creating routine.
At the moment, it’s just one part of the week, rather than the thing everything else fits around. I think that’s a good place for it to be, at least for now. So February has ended up being less about pushing forward and more about rebuilding. Not in a particularly obvious way, but in small, steady steps. A bit more running, a bit more confidence, and slightly less overthinking than a few weeks ago.
Still not completely back to normal, but definitely moving in the right direction.
