At least once in your life, you have probably heard about the beep test. Whether you have had to run it yourself or knew someone who had to complete it in their gym class, the consensus is the same, it sucks. Now for me, I loved running. I was a long-distance runner, so I actually enjoyed running the beep test. I saw it as a challenge to push my limits in how far I could run. That was until January of my grade nine year when the beep test ruined my life.
Now, this story starts in grade eight. I was hiking with my brother, father and friend when I accidentally slipped on a wet rock and smashed my knees into, well, rocks. I could barely move, but I wasn’t injured, so I had to keep walking. My knees felt better within a few days, but they kept giving out here and there, although I wasn’t very concerned about it. Fast forward a year, and it is time to do my very first beep test. It went very well, as I got to 7.4. I was proud of myself, but my knees were sore afterward. That should’ve been my first sign that I shouldn’t do the beep test again.
Come January, this particular beep test was going to be part of our mark for gym class. I was excited to try to break my record and make it to 8.0. I lined up and started jogging to the beeps. At 1.4, my life changed forever. My knee gave out, and I crashed into the wall. Did I stop and decide to give up? No, I got back up and kept running. That was a mistake! I could only make it to 5.6 before I was in so much pain that when I stopped, I almost passed out. Now, I wasn’t my teacher’s favourite student, so she didn’t notice when I fell walking to get water.
I called my mom crying because I was starting not to feel my legs and was getting concerned. Now, I didn’t mind a trip to the hospital, but I was scared that I could never run again if the feeling didn’t come back. It turns out I broke my L5 vertebrae, which was why I couldn’t feel anything. I was out of commission for six to eight weeks. I could only walk and lay on my back. Although, my knees were still so sore that I had to use crutches every other day or so.
Try explaining to your whole school why you keep flipping between crutches. Let’s say I got called a liar quite a bit.
I couldn’t lift my backpack or anything more than five pounds. This lasted more than eight weeks because it never healed properly. I had back pain every day, constantly, for three years. Due to the pain, I could barely lift anything, which caused my shoulders to weaken and now I can’t lift very much without pain. Due to my lack of walking and moving, my hips got out of alignment and now hurt from walking and moving.
To this day, I still have back and knee problems. I can’t walk for more than 15 minutes without having to sit down due to the pain. I can’t lift or carry much and get made fun of for being weak. The part that hurt the most though was that I had to give up being athletic, running and playing baseball and basketball at such a young age. I can’t even work out without being in pain, and I don’t think I will ever be able to run properly again. If I could go back in time, I would’ve been sick that day because, in the end, the beep test ruined my life.