Ok, I am feeling the pain this morning.

Not the pain from my foot, that has almost gone, but the pain from getting to the gym for the first time in 8 weeks.

I was doing good at the gym up until about 8 weeks ago. I was getting in a couple of 10k runs each week and also doing some rowing and strength training and then I went and got this foot injury that stopped me in my tracks.

I woke up one morning and couldn’t put weight on it, the arch had gone and I could feel the pain shooting across the sole of my foot. What the actual feck, how did that happen?

I had no idea how I damaged it. I don’t remember doing anything but this was as painful as hell. It would have been better if I had went over on it and so I had something to point to as the cause but, nope, I had no idea what I had done to my foot.

Plantar Fasciitis!!

Apparently it was this, after getting to the doctors and some careful probing, painful prodding, an MRI scan and a few other tests, including blood – Chinese Doctors are thorough – the conclusion was that it was; Plantar Fasciitis.

The doctor did suggest Gout!!, but after checking my bloods and then realising that there was no alcohol level present in my blood, he then changed his prognosis to what he subsequently concluded; I had Plantar Fasciitis.

I have mentioned it three times so far on this blog post because it was so painful, it deserves to be highlighted to others as I had never heard of it before. Now I share it with you.

Trust me, avoid this injury and take care of your feet! (Avoid all injury’s to be clear)

That was 8 weeks ago and after some medication, wearing a foot support and taking it easy… I am now almost back to normal. Almost.

So I decided to get back to the gym. Not easy.

Truth be told, I could have done some light work a few weeks ago but the foot injury was a good excuse to avoid it. I am not a gym fanatic, I go to the gym to keep relatively healthy so I can live longer and so going to the gym is a struggle a lot of the time…. any suggestions how to fix that would be good! (Leave a comment below)

So I went back to the gym. I had to work up to it and had the plan of doing a minimum of 30 to 40 minutes, but truth be told… my mind was not in it. But, I remembered the idea of building small habits.

It was in the book Atomic Habits, where the author, had suggested the guy who was avoiding the gym to get ready in the morning and drive to the gym and walk in the door and then leave, build the habit with small steps. Over time you will build on that habit and slowly you will be right where you need to be – at the gym on a regular basis.

Well, that’s what I decided to do. I went to the gym and sat on the rowing machine, did 4 minutes and then left.

I got to the locker room, went to the toilet and then felt guilty as heck and so went back in and finished another 10 minutes of rowing. It felt good and I felt that I had accomplished something.

The next day I went back and did 15 minutes, again on the rowing machine, it is easier on the foot. Then I left.

I did the same the following day and the day after. Now I was feeling good and felt like; ‘I am back, bring it’…

So on the 5th day, I was still feeling good, so I hammered the rowing machine for 20 minutes, the bike for 20 minutes and the weights for 10 minutes. It felt great, I felt super accomplished.

But, I am feeling the pain this morning.

I am happy with that, I am also happy that I built the habit back and I will work through the pain. I will probably tune it down a bit because yesterday was a bit much and far too quick on the return.

However, the point I have with habits is to build the habit. Build the habit of doing and achieving and there is no need to get too stressed over how much and for how long. I think that stuff finds its own way out.

My suggestion is always going to be to, just do it. Do that thing that you wanted to do even if it is not great at the start. The first is always never the best, you do get better with time and with feedback, as long as you keep building the habit you should do just fine.

In short.

Build the habit of doing