My body is trying to sabotage me

I had been doing so well at working toward my fitness goals. I was walking nearly every day of the week, increasing my pace and distance, and even jogging more than I had in a long time. I was feeling strong and pleased with the results on the scale and my overall health and strength. Then about a month ago my foot started to feel a little achy after one of my workouts. Like any not-so-smart person would do, I ignored it and pushed through the pain. The only problem is that it wasn’t just a case of workout soreness, it was beginning to feel like an injury. I got worried and had to stop all cardio exercise because it was just too uncomfortable. After about a week I knew I needed to schedule an appointment with my family doctor to see if she could magically fix me and I could move on with my fitness and exercise goals. As soon as she diagnosed me, I immediately freaked out because I knew it meant I could do basically nothing except for swimming where cardio exercise is concerned. Oh yeah I should mention that I hate to swim. I get no joy from it whatsoever. I’d much rather sit next to the pool with a book or float around on something inflatable. My damned achilles tendon wasn’t pleased with all of that repetitive and consistent exercise I was doing over the last few months so it decided to send me a message to slow the heck down. Or sabotage me. I’m not sure which.

I nearly broke down in tears as I explained to my doctor how great I was feeling and how my biggest fear was losing my momentum. She assured me it would feel better within a couple of weeks, but I should really get in the pool and swim. It’s now been more than two weeks and I’ve walked two miles twice this week, with a little soreness afterward both times. I fear it’s going to be a while before I can actually jog, let alone run, again. I’m so disappointed in my body, but mostly I’m disappointed in myself for not being better about stretching and listening to my body’s needs when it was trying to send me polite messages to ease back a little bit. I’ve been on a hunt for other types of workouts that focus on core strength and upper and body toning so that I can be doing something to burn calories and so far I’ve found a couple different ones, but what I really want and what my sanity and overall well-being both desperately need is to be running again.