A Lingering Injury & Moving Past Percieved Limitations

This post originally appeared in my weekly newsletter, BL&T (Borrowed, Learned, & Thought). Subscribe

Borrowed

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

From "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield** [Book]

Learned

About six years ago, after my second powerlifting competition, I started feeling pain in my knee and ankle. I had just hit a personal record on my deadlift—385 lbs, more than I was aiming for—so I figured it was natural to ache after pushing my body like that. I didn’t think much of it.

When I returned to training, my coach, Sam, adjusted my movements to reduce pressure on my knee and ankle. He also taught me a simple trick to ease the aching: rolling a golf ball under my foot. Sam is a big guy, and here he was, pressing my foot down with force against a ball on a concrete floor. I don’t know if I’ve ever willingly felt pain like that before. It was brutal, but it helped. We repeated the ritual before workouts, and eventually, the discomfort faded.

Still, the aching came and went over the years, shifting between my knee and ankle. I saw doctors, got X-rays, even an MRI on my knee in 2023—nothing conclusive. So I stuck with the ball trick, wore a knee compression sleeve for high-intensity training, and worked around it when needed.

Then, this past December, a month after my first marathon, the pain returned as I eased back into running. Strangely, it hadn’t been an issue during training or the race. I took a week off. Then another. Then another. I thought rest would help, but nothing changed.

Before leaving for Arizona, I was more diligent about the ball rolling, and luckily, the aching let up enough for me to hike while I was there. Encouraged, I started running again when I got home. The discomfort wasn’t gone entirely, but it was manageable. Still, I was tired of searching for answers, so I got an ankle MRI.

And, well, my ankle is pretty messed up.

The MRI showed an old sprain, scar tissue, and ligaments that “resemble an overstretched rubber band that’s lost its elasticity.” Beautiful. The doctor pointed to evidence of an injury from childhood, and he was right—I sprained my ankle when I was four, jumping around at a family friend’s house. Incredible to think a long-forgotten injury is still haunting me 30 years later.

I don’t need surgery, but I’ll be starting physical therapy to strengthen the ankle.

Since getting the MRI results, I’ve been thinking about the past several years—how I’ve pushed my body in all sorts of ways: powerlifting, strongman, endurance events. Achieving things I once thought impossible.

Would I have taken on these challenges if I had known about the state of my ankle?

Or would I have convinced myself I had a “bad ankle” and held back?

We put limits on ourselves all the time, often without realizing it. Some constraints are real—time, money, environment—but more often, they exist in our heads. Stories we tell ourselves.

It’s fascinating—now that I have clarity on my ankle, I already feel a shift in my mindset. I recently started training for another HYROX in March, and for the first time, I caught myself questioning my ability to perform or even take on the challenge.

Before, I just dealt with the discomfort and pushed through. Now, there’s a label for it, a reason to second-guess everything.

But nothing has changed. My ankle has been this way for years—I just didn’t know it. And knowing shouldn’t be an excuse to hold back. It should be a tool to train smarter. If anything, to get stronger.

It’s a real injury, but I know that if I let it hold me back, waiting for the “right time,” that time may never come.

I watched Here over the weekend, a film that takes place over generations in a single room, the camera never changing position. There’s a lot to reflect on when the film ends, but what stuck with me most was how life keeps moving, whether or not we feel ready. Of course we know this, but watching the film invites you in, forcing you to acknowledge it, sit with it.

Tom Hanks’ character spends years putting things off, waiting for the right moment, and convincing himself that certain things aren’t possible. But time doesn’t wait. And before he knows it, those choices—or non-choices—have shaped his life.

Between my ankle situation and being a new-ish parent, I keep thinking about that—how easy it is to say I can’t do this, or I’ll get to that later and let perceived limitations dictate what we do. The things we want may never come simplybecause we don’t permit ourselves to pursue them.

I have too much going on at work to take that family trip.

I can’t get in shape because of my genetics.

I don’t have the right team to build a successful business.

There’s not enough time to do what I really want.

But time doesn’t stop. And before you know it, years have passed, and everything looks completely different.

And you realize maybe it was worth trying.

+

**Note on "Borrowed" this week: I haven’t read The War of Art yet, but I’ve enjoyed listening to a few interviews with the author, Steven Pressfield. His story is best summed up on his About page:

"I wrote for 27 years before I got my first novel published (The Legend of Bagger Vance). During that time I worked 21 different jobs in eleven states. I taught school, I drove tractor-trailers, I worked in advertising and as a screenwriter in Hollywood, I worked on offshore oil rigs, I picked fruit as a migrant worker..."

Pressfield didn’t write The War of Art—the book he’s best known for—until he was 52. Now 81, he’s a testament to what it means to be persistent, challenge the odds, and put in the work to find the path you’re meant to follow.

More on the "Unlived Life" here.