No Pain, No Gain

I don’t think this phrase applies to everything in life but in the world of sports… it unfortunately does.

Growing up playing football (soccer), I became very familiar with injuries. The first scare happened when I was 15.

My First Real Injury

I was playing with some boys in my village. My teammate had the ball at his feet, standing still for a moment. I tried take the ball from his feet—a common move in football—but at the exact same second, he decided to shoot.

His foot. My foot. The ball in between.

The impact was strong and my ankle twisted badly. I couldn’t walk. I don’t remember how I got home but I do remember vividly sitting in the shower with a swollen ankle, crying my eyes out convinced I would never play football again.

The next day, still barely able to walk, my mom took me for an X-ray. No broken bone, thankfully, but the doctor’s advice was simply “wear an ankle brace.” Not great advice in hindsight.

It took a long time to recover. The brace made my muscles weaker and no one guided me toward physiotherapy. But luckily, it was just an elongated ligament, no surgery needed. If it had been worse, I would’ve had no idea how to handle it.

Injuries Became Part of the Journey

That wasn’t my only injury. I twisted my ankle again, had other setbacks and eventually discovered physiotherapy which helped me many times.

I hated being sidelined. For anyone who loves their sport, injuries feel like punishment. But the truth is: you can’t fully play or compete without accepting the risk of getting hurt. If you’re constantly trying to avoid pain, you’ll hold back or worse, you won’t play at all.

And if you ask me now: Would I erase all my football memories to avoid the pain from injuries?

Absolutely not.

Football shaped my entire life. I don’t know who I’d be without it. The joy I experienced over the years is worth every painful moment and ten times more. And honestly, compared to many of my peers, I was lucky to walk away with few injuries.

The Injury I Hated Most

If you’ve ever played football, you know the nightmare of someone stepping on your foot with studs. But the worst is when they land on your toenail.

If it’s painful enough, the nail turns black. And once it does, there’s no saving it. It falls off… and the new one takes about six months to grow.

I lost count of how many times this happened to me. It was the injury I hated the most.

When I stopped playing as much, I thought those days were over.

And Then… I Started Running

Running short distances was fine. 5K, 10K, even 15K is nothing unusual. But the moment I entered the hour and a half plus territory… my old enemy came back.

Black toenails.

Except this time, it wasn’t because someone stepped on me. It was because your toenail repeatedly hitting the front of your shoe for long periods creates micro-trauma which eventually does the same thing.

Unfortunately for me, each foot has a different toe taking the impact. And because I wasn’t knowledgeable about prevention, I ended up with two black toenails.

It sucks. It’s painful. And now I have to wait months for nails to grow back.

But do I regret signing up for a marathon?

Absolutely not.

I hate this part of the journey but nowhere near enough to let it stop me from doing something that means so much to me and something I know will be worth it.

Pain Is Part of the Deal

In sports, pain is inevitable. If you’re going all in, you will get hurt. You will be uncomfortable and you’ll sacrifice parts of yourself lol.

But the gains are so much greater than the pain.

I’m grateful to be injury-free so far in the areas runners fear most like knees, shins and hips. So two angry toenails aren’t going to stop me from chasing something much bigger than temporary discomfort.

Pain in Life

And the same idea applies outside of sports. There is no pleasure without pain for the simple reason that you can’t recognize joy if you’ve never felt its opposite.

We’ve all lived through moments we wish we could erase. But the truth is: if you wiped away every painful memory, you’d lose the best ones too. The highs only exist because the lows give them meaning.

Pain is part of pursuing anything that matters. In sports and in life, it’s often the price of passion.

And honestly? It’s a price I’m always willing to pay.