Stupid Damage

The road back to running health and race fitness is not always a straight path. Sometimes it's not even paved. Not that an unpaved path is a bad thing...as long as there aren't too many bumps and rocks to bounce around. Mine, so I've learned, has a few blind curves and - apparently, from an experience at the beginning of this month - some obstacles which will need to be addressed, moved or just plain blown away.

A Tuesday track workout found Jim observing, as he put it, a "hitch in my giddy-up" during the warm-up. At first I put it down to a little bit of gamesmanship; while I'm the coach and he's the athlete, we're separated in age by only a couple of years. Some of the quicker efforts on the track can put us both on the verge of racing. At the tail end of the warm-up I made a brief "pause for the cause," which can sometimes improve the gait, or at least the outlook, toward a run workout. We slid into the workout and ran our 200-meter and 400-meter repeats.

The next morning I felt pretty much the same degree of tightness in my heels as in the past, so I didn't give the discomfort much thought. Until I went out for my mid-morning run on the wood chip trail outside my office. "Being flayed alive with a rusty straight razor", like John Parker Jr's. Quenton Cassidy, would have been most welcome. I literally had to shut down the run after the first minute.

I decided to go into Plan B, and do a little bit of run-walk.

Three minutes later, Plan B turned into Plan C: a nice walk along the trail in order to save my legs for a run later in the afternoon.

As I walked gamely around my office I realized this was no minor issue of delayed onset muscle soreness or something a little more disconcerting like inflamed achilles tendons. I'd done what appeared to be some stupid damage which was most likely going to take a few days to a week to straighten out.

So, I did what any smart guy would do in that situation. I slept on the issue, then talked to my dog about it during our morning walk. As Rubin and I walked we started to consider the possible root causes:

First, there was probably too much increase in stress for the body to handle (the classic "if this is good, then twice the amount is better" thing). While I increased the duration of each run by no more than ten percent, I also added additional workouts during the week; I had gone from from four hours to somewhere close to seven hours of running over a three-week period.

The second root cause might have to do with the pair of lightweight trainers I prefer for track workouts. They aren't the oldest pair of running shoes I have, and they don't have as many miles as the oldest pair, but 310 harder, more-sweaty miles, run through the heat of summer means faster midsole breakdown than running in more mild conditions.

When I've done too much speedwork or hard running on a crowned road the discomfort is usually limited to a single heel or ankle. But the pain this time was bilateral, in the heels, ankles, knees quadriceps and lower back...a sure sign shoes are a culprit.

So, the best course of action when the stupid damage is done is go "three steps forward, two steps back". Or at least two steps back:

First thing I would recommend is to scale back the run duration to the point before the discomfort and pain began. Those runners who feel compelled to do additional workouts might want to consider ones which will stress the cardiovascular system but place minimal impact stress on the musculoskeletal systems, like road cycling, stationary cycling, elliptical trainers, aqua jogging or swimming.

Second, find running routes which aren't going to place undue stress on the joints; preferably level ground. Dirt trails are great and more forgiving than asphalt or concrete, but be careful of wood chip or mulch surfaces, as they can be a little too forgiving or too unstable for the feet and ankles.

Third, once the body has adapted to a change in weekly run duration, distance, or terrain, resist the temptation to pile on MORE. Some runners can safely handle a distance or duration increase of up to 20 percent, but we are all an experiment of one - what works for you might put me back in the hurt locker. And whatever increases or changes are done, make certain to spread them out over the entire week.

Fourth, make certain to keep track of how long you've worn or run in a pair of training shoes. Six months, or 300-to-400 miles is a good gauge, but can be shorter based on weight and running conditions. Besides, good shoes are cheaper than good physical therapists.

Finally, make certain your training plan and your racing schedule are written in pencil. I'd rather be a happy 5K runner than an injured spectator. I've done that a few too many times this past year. It's not fun.

So, listen to your body throughout the training cycle. If you don't heed the first messages, it will eventually find a way to make you listen.

Validate Yourself

'I am extraordinary, if you'd ever get to know me; I am extraordinary, I'm just your ordinary, average, everyday, sane, psycho...' - "Extraordinary," Liz Phair (2003)

"I'm starting to really enjoy life," said the young woman. "Last week was the first time I walked out of the gym while it was still daylight. I walked my dogs twice."

I sat listening to the conversation while nibbling on a pulled pork sandwich and swatting at a dozen gnats. The three of us had just finished working a sprint triathlon, the official debrief was completed. For me, it was a time to sit back and quietly learn more about officiating, especially about personal interaction with other officials and athletes once the race is through.

The young woman, in her real life, works as a personal trainer. Even the most emotionally-ignorant person like me can tell she has that intense 'take no bull' kind of attitude. Type A, all the way. She recently stepped back from a managerial position which kept her off the workout floor and away from the things she seems to enjoy the most about a career in the fitness profession.

My friend and mentor, Jay, definitely knows the lay of the terrain. He has, over the course of many years, moved up the food chain, from working as a personal trainer, to operating a small exercise and fitness center, to running the athletic and fitness program for the base where I work. Not surprisingly, he described in brief the factorial increases which come along with grasping each succeding rung up the corporate ladder: responsibility, accountability, boring meetings, and - regrettably - time spent doing things you would prefer to have done by someone else.

"But as you get older, there is the need to learn management. You can't stay in a career for 20 years, into your mid-40s, and still be out on the floor showing guys how to lift a weight a certain way."

He continued, "On the other side of the coin, you bring in young folks to begin their career and they really don't know everything there is to know about working with people one-to-one. They might have taken the class or read the book, and passed the test, but they haven't proven themselves yet. I tend to push them toward doing endurance events, such as long-distance triathlons, marathons, stuff like that, as a method of validating themselves to their clients."

I thought a great deal about Jay's validation comment as I drove home. As a coach my methods are validated by not only by the athletes I coach but also by myself. I have a piece written by Ethan Barron, a college track and cross-country head coach, tacked up above my desk. He talks not only about the need for a coach to be a reliable role model with regards to dedication, loyalty, work ethic and healthy lifestyle choices, but also about striving for ones' best as a definition of success.

How many times have you heard family members talk about you? The last time Suzanne and I visited my family, my sister joked, "...someone please remind the runners to get back on time so we're not late for..." There would be no financial hardship in my house if I had a dollar for every time I had a relative say, "...you make me feel like I should go out and do..." It validates, to a degree, the success of what we do in our lives. We aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we're somewhere on the path.

Some folks, on the other hand, like to have a little more concrete evidence to validate why they run. I guess that's why people run races. It can't be necessarily because we have a love for technical fiber shirts, or we want to justify drinking a beer at 9:00 in the morning. And the hard numbers, the black and white on that results sheet can tell us how well we did - both in training and in performance - compared to our fellow runners and the varying sample population from the rest of the world who decided to show up that day. Training can also be validated by other numbers: They can be the physiological markers which are positively affected by our lifestyle. They can be the increase or decrease in measure of distance, of time, bodily habitus, and of consistency. There's nothing like the sight of a calendar with filled spaces.

So, maybe we run to prove ourselves. Maybe we run to prove to ourselves. And there are probably times we run in spite of ourselves. But most of all I believe we do it to validate ourselves.