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.