INDIANAPOLIS—It's an anniversary that Reggie Wayne doesn't want to be celebrating but he knows brighter days are ahead.
A week from Saturday will mark three months since Wayne had surgery for his torn ACL.
Wayne is looking forward to Jan. 25, as it will be the next phase in his rehab process.
"I'm going to do straight ahead running (then)," Wayne said on his weekly radio show on WNDE.
"I'm looking forward to doing that. I've been walking quite often lately. I get to run on a treadmill and that's basically it."
Through the early phases of Wayne's rehab, the 13-year veteran says that he's "ahead of schedule".
Head coach Chuck Pagano has echoed the same sentiments.
In the day following Wayne's season-ending injury, Pagano addressed the media in saying there was no doubt in his mind that No. 87 would return to his old form.
On Tuesday, Wayne recalled his own feelings when trainers surrounded around him early in the fourth quarter of the Colts Oct. 20 win over Denver
"There was not a breath, anything, in my mind that said this is it," Wayne said of his feelings when he went down.
"I feel like I still have something left to offer. I just felt like this was maybe an opportunity for my body to heal, just a weird way of doing it. In no way did I feel like this was my last hurrah."
As the extremely early preseason projections for 2014 begin to hit national websites, the common theme around the Colts receivers is "Will Reggie Wayne return to 100 percent?"
A younger Wayne would have been fuming while reading such statements but at the age of 35, he has bigger reasons to prove people wrong.
"I'm already self motivated. I have my family, my kids, who I just want to really show them that whenever adversity hits, if you put hard work into it, things will get back to the way it used to be, or things can get better," he said.
Wayne is entering his 14th NFL offseason and one unlike any other he has had to encounter.
The Colts training room has been a frequent home for Wayne the past few months.
In order for Wayne to return to the form that puts up him in the discussion for Canton, it's going to a busier than normal offseason.
"I'm all about rehab," Wayne said about the upcoming months.
"It's offseason for a lot of guys but this might be the first time in my career that I really don't have an offseason."*
Check back with Colts.com tomorrow for a look at what Wayne thoughts of the Colts 2013 season.*
