I sat on the edge of the table in a cramped room within the campus athletic training facilities, listening to Coach Russ, Jenny, and the team physician discuss my inability to heal. Three months after the onset of pain and my right peroneal tendon was still causing the same problems it did before the season even began. Ten days without running had left me mentally depressed and it didn't seem that anything would change soon. My fears came true as the Doc looked at me and essentially said what I already knew: "You have an injury, but I don't know exactly what it is or how to fix it. Let it rest."

This was the scene earlier today as I spent the latter half of the afternoon being worried over by my ever-more-distraught athletic support staff. Months of painful, bruising massages, electrocution, icing, heating, and even lasers have reseulted in no progress whatsoever. The athletic trainers, having finally exhausted all available options, are giving up. From here on I'll be spending my days in the SwimEx pool, trying to retain some sort of fitness while my body slowly repairs itself and returns to full health. Time is the only medicine I have left.

And so I wait. Yet again, as another season slips away into the obscurity of injury and unrealized expectations, I shall pass under the radar. This situation has become so routine by now I can hardly believe my own faith in the monster that still resides within me. And I do believe in it still. It is there, waiting, steaming and sizzling and building its rage. It will never go away, no matter how many injuries and illnesses and mediocre performances may curse my career. The body grows weak, tires, and breaks, but the monster never dies.

I will be back, and the past three seasons will be avenged.