Every day I talk to runners who tell me their doctor said they have to stop running. Just stop and think about that for a minute. A runner is told to stop running.

A runner has pain in her foot. Maybe it’s a metatarsal stress fracture. Maybe it’s a plantar plate sprain. Maybe it’s plantar fasciitis. But the runner wants to run and not have foot pain.

So the runner makes an appointment with a supposed expert (a doctor), sits in a waiting room, then sits in a second waiting room waiting for the doctor to actually come in to do something.

Finally, the door swings open and you tell the doctor that you have this pain in your foot when you’re running. And then the doctor tells you to stop running.

So what just happened? Did the doctor not understand that you’re a runner? Did the doctor not understand you actually want to keep running? Does the doctor think running is not important to you? Or does the doctor really think you showed up to have somebody in a white coat tell you you should trade your running shoes for a bike helmet or a pair of swim goggles.

That doesn’t really sound like much of a solution to you, does it?

In this episode we are talking about how not running is optional.