It could have happened this morning. That's how well I remember it. I was seventeen and an ambitious skateboarder, talented but with a head hard enough to neglect the advice that what I was doing could potentially result in long term damage to my body. I am now 23 and dealing with back pain that has left me unable to ski, snowboard, skateboard or run long distance. Back problems have caused me to check my sense of worth and continually question my strength as a man. Yet, I've never been able to give up the struggle toward living a healthy, pain free life.
I work out 4-5 times a week, I cycle everywhere and I never let a little bit of pain hold me back. I've tried running, but a 5k tends to leave me hardly able to stand for a week. I've decided to try to push through the pain and run myself back into shape. I am going to push through this back pain by feeling the pain and knowing that pain=improvement. When I think about running, I think about running distances. I think about taking full Saturdays to train for marathons, to push myself and to intimately know my personal capacity. My bad back has held me back too long, so tomorrow I will begin to run through a chronically bad back. I will update every workout. I hope this information can help other men and women whose backs keep them from reaching their goals. It's true we never know our own strength until we try, so let's see if pushing through back problems can bring us closer to our own potential.