Injury: Part II

"Shattered against the rocks" 

The month that likely broke me-- namely that last week

In a perfect world, we all walk that fine line with ease; realistically, this is not the case. So what do you do if you find yourself shattered against the rocks? This is something that until recently, I have honestly had very little experience with. I walked that line very well for about 7 years, until I wrote a certain blog in which I stated “I have had 8+ years of virtually injury free training.” As per usual, I was sidelined with intense IT pain about a week after writing that—10 days before my half marathon debut (when I was in the best shape of my life nonetheless). After 10 days of barely any running and an excessive amount of cross-training, I ran a race in Philly that I considered to be mediocre at best relative to the shape I was in. Recently, after months of rehab (thanks Advanced Sports Chiro) I was finally getting consistent training in with hopes of a spring season. Last week I finished a successful early season workout of 4x400, and a 5 mile tempo, before exclaiming “man, I’m really glad my IT held up for that.” No sooner did I start my cool down before my IT locked up, preventing me from making it across the track. I am now an avid believer in running karma.

Stimulation therapy-- electrodes on my leg

In my mind, there are two types of running injuries: Those you can rest, and those you can’t afford to rest. If you are in your base building phase or any early stage of training, and have the luxury of time, do yourself a favor and rest. 1 day, 3 days, a week, 2 weeks—if you don’t need to be in peak racing shape for a few months then take the time off while you still can. It is never beneficial to run injured. It destroys you physically and mentally. It saps all the joy out of the sport. What you need to do is dedicate all your time to rehab. Say you run 45 minutes day when healthy. When hurt, you need to rehab 45 minutes a day. Stretch, massages, foam-roll, ice and repeat as many times as necessary to take care of your injury. I understand that this is tedious, but it needs to be done in order to return to health. I learned this the hard way. MANY running injuries do not go away just by taking time off. Constant attention is a necessity.

Every runner should have a foam roller

Those injuries that you can’t afford to rest come in your final stages of competition—when you are weeks away from your goal race that you have spent many months training for. In this case, cross-training is the solution. Many types of cross-training provide low impact exercises for muscular and aerobic development. Some of the best kinds are swimming, elliptical, biking, cross-ramp, and pool running. Contrary to popular belief, you can stay in excellent shape simply by cross-training. If you do a variety of exercises daily, you can get the same—if not a better—stimulus than actual running. The trick is to do more volume of cross-training. If you run for 45 minutes a day, cross-train for 90 minutes when injured. This can be extremely difficult and mentally taxing. It is easy to give up hope when you’re sidelined and just succumb to the injury. If you want to make the months you spent training for your race worthwhile, then you need to stay focused and rededicate yourself to a different kind of training—a more monotonous kind.

Being injured is the most trying ordeal any dedicated runner will face. It can take everything you worked for and leave you in physical and emotional pain. However, you can also find a lot out about yourself as a runner—and as a person—while injured. It is a question of how you respond to adversity. Do you pack it in and chalk it up as bad luck and lost season? Or do you hang tough and rededicate yourself to your goal, grinding it out until the job is done? 

From personal experience, my first real trial with injury was my senior year of college during indoor track. With a week before the conference championship I strained a muscle in my lower quad. It was an injury I could not run through because it locked up my whole knee, changing my stride. It would have been easy to pack it up as a lost season and get focused on building a base for outdoor. However, I decided to grind it out and see what I could do. I spent four days furiously cross-training and rehabbing with a chip on my shoulder, trying to prove to myself that I could still salvage the season. After 4 days, it felt good enough to test out with a light workout—8-10 quarter miles at around 67 seconds. After nailing the workout I felt good about my chances for the meet.  Got a 10 minute pre-meet in and decided to lace up the spikes and see if I could hang in the race, very unsure of my fitness. To this day, it is one of the most memorable races I’ve ever run, and by far the conference title I am most proud of.

Injury: Part I

"Staying healthy is half the battle."

I have found that, ironically, one of the best things about the sport of running is also one of the biggest detriments. So many people fall in love with this sport for one single idea: The harder you work, the better you get. It is one of the things that makes the sport so pure. Your competition runs 70 miles a week. You run 85 and you outwork him with higher mileage, more tempos, and faster workouts, inevitably becoming the faster, stronger runner. Unfortunately, this is a misconception—and it is a misconception that leads to the biggest pitfall in our sport: The much dreaded injury.

Our sport is one of high stress and high impact on almost every bone, joint, muscle and tendon below your waist. Almost all running injuries are related to over-use. So how do we outwork our opponent without pushing yourself across the line that may lead to stress or injury? The answer is simple: Don’t out train the competition. Outsmart them. You need to train with a more innate sense of your physical and mental limitations. One of the most important things I have learned in my years of running is that staying healthy is half the battle. Consistent training kills the competition. Don’t destroy yourself to make huge gains over a one or two month period. Stay healthy, motivated and injury free for 6 months and make steady progress towards your goal.

In my (not expert) opinion, staying healthy comes from being in touch with your body—and no, not in that way. If you can understand when your muscles are sore and need to be stretched, massaged, and iced, then you can prevent injury. If you can understand exactly what kind of food and hydration your body needs to perform at its highest level, you will have the most successful training possible and prevent sickness. If you know exactly how many hours of sleep your body needs in relation to your mileage, then you will be able to stay healthy and energized. If you can “feel” that exact pace and intensity that your body needs on recovery days, workout days, and longruns then you can optimize your training. In essence, if you can walk that very fine line between training perfection and absolute disaster, then you are master of your body. There is such an infinitesimal difference between sailing happily on the ocean waves and crashing along the rocky shores; if you understand that difference then you can own your training. 

Over-training can put you on this long, lonely, uphill path

It is those who walk this line that I have seen become successful over the years—and likewise—It is those who blur that line that I have seen crash and burn over the years. More often than not, someone who makes conservative, steady progress with their training will trump someone who tries to rush fitness. Run enough mileage, high intensity intervals, and speed workouts and you will get into scary fast shape in a month or two. But you run the risk of peaking too early, sustaining a severe injury, or becoming mentally exhausted from pushing yourself to the limit. Either way, you regress back to square one. Nothing destroys a season (and your morale) like a stress fracture, tendonitis, a long-term sickness or the much feared "burn out" . Lay a foundation, be patient with your fitness, and train in a correct and physiologically sound way and you will make leaps and bounds over a 4-6 month period. If this plan is followed, weeks, months and years of happy, injury-free training can follow. 

Coffeeing-Up

 “Coffee is the sweet nectar of life” 

Three things I attribute to drastic positive changes in my running career: 1) Switching from Nike trainers to Brooks, 2) introducing a regular strength routine into my training regimen, 3) Embracing the gloriously dark, heart-thumping nectar of life that is coffee.

Many people see coffee as nothing but an unwanted, unsafe caffeine boost that grabs hold of you and enslaves you for life. I won’t disagree that once you are hooked, you are hooked for life. However, I am fine with being dependent on something as useful, cheap, and easily available as coffee. The day they stop making and selling coffee at every convenience store, corner market, snack stand, and organized gathering of over 10 people, is the day that I will give up running and possibly being a productive human being all together.

Opponents of coffee fail to see the positive nutritional effects of it on physical activity. Not only does coffee increase your heart rate and warm-up your body up for activity; It helps you store glycogen and burn fat more efficiently. Yes, it is a diuretic, and yes it can dehydrate you if used incorrectly. Just make sure that you double-fist hydrate with both coffee and water or a sports drink. Also, leave yourself plenty of time to use the bathroom, which you will have to frequently.

One of my best friends since high school—and my longest legitimate training partner (7 years and counting)—was a huge opponent of coffee. Not only did he have an intense hatred for the taste and a loathing of the smell, he saw no real use in terms of running. Needles to say, he was adamantly against my favorite beverage and we spent many runs bickering about the topic. I’m not quite sure what made him cave, but I received a text from him a month or two ago that read: “ Dude. Drank a cup of coffee. I feel like I can run a 4 min mile. And take over the world.” Beautifully put. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Fam's Alaskan brew- Dead Man's Reach

I have woken up late for a scheduled longrun, forgetting to eat a breakfast, and made it 20 miles up and down South Mountain with nothing to fuel me but a steaming cup of joy. Ryan Hall puts coffee in his pancakes (true fact). Anthony Famiglietti gets Alaskan Coffee shipped to him that he brews only on race days. Even the famed Quenton Cassidy disappeared into the woods with little more than a pair of trainers and coffee pot, and we all know how that turned out. (Disclaimer: Not even coffee will make you run 60 barefoot 400s in 62-63 seconds)

One the biggest proponents of coffee I know is my former college coach. Ironically, he also happens to be the single greatest mind in the land when it comes to distance running, and he himself was one the most accomplished long distance runners in the history of the country. He is the proverbial Godfather of running— if Vito Corleone could run a 2:12 marathon and win a bronze medal at the World Championship. Anyway, he once told me that using coffee the right way could take 30-40 seconds off my 8k time. Now, this is by no means a proven scientific formula and may have been highly exaggerated, but the point is: when an Olympian talks, you listen—especially when you are a young, impressionable freshman. And listen I did. My running career took off and I never looked back… or stopped drinking my liquid stamina.

If you are feeling stiff and asleep for the first half of your morning run—coffee up. If you are having trouble mustering the energy to get in a 30 min afternoon run—coffee up. If you have a tough workout that you absolutely need to nail—coffee up. If you can’t make it though the day of work because you are at the tail end of a 90 mile week—coffee up. If you see it mid-race at a fueling stop—just kidding, don’t coffee up mid-race. Anyone who has been shunning this beverage, needs to wake up and realize the benefits! We need to start a coffee revolution in the running community. Do your part. Make your fellow runner coffee up!