Summertime, but the living isn’t always easy.

June was a rough month, my Bridgerton-esque interlude aside. There were days spent at the bedside of a terminally ill person, followed by a death. An accident that totaled my car. A sick dog. Work stress. Then I caught a headcold. I got my period (in the same week). Someone literally pooped in the community pool.

Toward the end of the month, I found myself back in Pittsburgh and feeling ever-so-slightly…well, not normal, but normal-ish. My headcold was gone, the bumps scratches from the car accident healed, and the pool was re-opened. The sprint triathlon I’d registered for was only a few weeks away, and it was a beautiful Friday afternoon. I gathered my gear and decided to head out for a swim.

This was to be my first triathlon in a decade. I loved the symmetry of it, 2014 to 2024. I still had my road bike, Ruby, and I even had the tri suit I’d worn all those years ago (it still fits.) I had been training all winter: laps in the high school pool, runs in the cold mornings, at night, pushing through fatigue and grumpiness and age. Training gave me a focal point. And putting myself back in the fold of triathletes didn’t make me feel young, exactly, but it did make me feel capable. I didn’t have to be fast. I just had to finish.

I had every reason to be hopeful that afternoon. Until I didn’t.

It happened in an instant: a worn flip-flop meeting slick slate tile. Down I went, into pain worse than anything I could remember. Physical pain, yes – sharp, terrible, and relentless that shot along my leg. But mental anguish as well, as I struggled to get to my feet and found that I simply couldn’t. Something was terribly wrong. There would be no triathlon for me this summer.

I half-crawled across the floor to my phone. A short while later – it felt like an eternity – Peter was helping me navigate through the doorway of an urgent care clinic on crutches. Without medical imaging, a precise diagnosis was impossible, but it was likely I had a Grade II or Grade III hamstring tear. I was sent home with a compression wrap on my rapidly swelling leg and a prescription for painkillers.

The following days were agony. I tried not to think too much about the training I should have been doing. What I was missing out on. Instead, I took small steps, and looked for small victories.

At first even the slightest pressure on the injury was excruciating. Movements had to be carefully calculated. For example, to go to bed, I first stood perpendicular to my mattress. I then did a slow belly flop, gently rolled only my non-injured side while keeping my injured leg as motionless as possible, and tucked pillows around myself in a futile effort to defy gravity and make the pain somehow endurable. I didn’t sleep much.

But slowly, it got better. Within a week I could walk free of the crutches. I was able to sit outside in the backyard and look at my flowers and listen to the birds. On a bright summer morning, with a cup of coffee in my hand, it was enough.

As the swelling and bruises subsided, I gradually resumed light activities. Biking and running remained out of reach. But I could swim, in a fashion. Kicking still hurt, so I did slow laps using just my arms. When I woke with mildly sore shoulders the following morning, I smiled at the evidence of my efforts.

Triathlon day arrived. Instead of loading my bike, helmet, and shoes into the car, I packed a folding chair and mug of coffee. Peter and I had opted to volunteer at the event. It was a way of being there, even though competition was off the table.

We arrived shortly at the course after dawn, the early morning air surprisingly cool as we took up places near the transition area. We set up course markers, chatted with other volunteers, answered athlete questions, kept eager spectators at bay. And once the event started, we cheered. The competitors were a mix, and an inspiring one at that: elite athletes who blasted through each segment, first-timers, teenagers, middle-aged folks, older people.

I found myself commiserating with two other women who’d also been struck with injuries. We heard each other’s stories, grimacing in sympathy, and in the shared angst of not only not finishing a race, but not even being able to start.

That afternoon, when I returned home, I grabbed my gear and went to the pool. I swam 800 yards. I used my legs. The water closed around me like an embrace. Like a promise that there is more to come.