Don’t Add Insult to Injury

If you love to run, an extended, forced layoff from running due to an injury can be dispiriting. You can’t wait for that first run when the injury is finally healed. That joy is smashed within minutes as your legs fill up with concrete and your pace slows to a crawl with each painful step. Coming back from a long layoff is not easy. The longer the layoff, and the older you get, the more difficult it is to battle back. The sad truth is that you will feel terrible and BE slower, at least for a while. Over the last five years I went through two long layoffs due to a severed Achilles and a torn meniscus. The first meant no running at all for four months and more than 12 months before I came close to my former self. The second was three months off and 6 months to get back up to running speed. Unfortunately there is no magic pill that puts you instantly back to where you were before the layoff. No Viagra for dysfunctional runners. But there are ways to improve the recovery process. However, despite what Nike says, don’t “just do it.” That’s a great way to just get re-injured. Develop a plan by following these simple steps and you’ll go a long way towards minimizing the pain and suffering.

Go to Rehab
If possible, seek out a rehab center. No, not the Betty Ford type, but the ones that treat sport injuries. An injury is your body trying to say something meaningful to you. Listen carefully. Do you have poor running mechanics, weak support muscles, or some genetic predisposition? Even if it was an accident, you now have a weakness in that area that will alter your running mechanics. Perhaps it was already a weak spot, hence the injury. Seek out functional exercises, “Grasshopper,” that will strengthen the injured and surrounding areas to prevent it from happening again, or at least minimize the potential of a relapse. Most runners have some sort of “functional” weakness that inhibits their running. If you can’t afford to go to Rehab, than buy a book or search the internet for running-oriented “core” exercises for your specific injury.

2. Cross Train
This doesn’t mean to run when you’re in a foul mood. Running is hard on the body. Try another aerobic exercise to gain fitness without the impact of running. After my miscues tear, I started swimming on my “recovery” days. After several months, I notice that my running performance was actually better than ever before. Biking, swimming, rowing, and other non-impact aerobic sports are good alternatives to doing a recovery run on your easy days. You might just discover another venue for your competitive nature, like I did in triathlons.

3. Drop out of Warp
Avoid putting it into hyper drive. Unfortunately your normal training paces will suffer proportionately to the layoff. Your muscles and tendons need to get reintroduced to speed. You might feel strong initially from the layoff, but the pace will suffer over any distance. Going too fast too soon means undue stress to the body and mind, and the potential for more injury or sickness. Keep the pace easy and try to finish with plenty in the tank over the first several weeks to months back. Gradually throw in a few “striders” after each run to begin tuning up the muscles for a faster pace. Increase the number of striders each week to about 8-10 once or twice a week. Once you feel ready for track or tempo sessions, start with very few repetitions and shorter distances, and build slowly each week.

From Here to Eternity (and Back)
Be patient. Don’t go crazy building your mileage up fast trying to “catch up” to your old self. Besides speed, your ability to handle your normal training distances will be greatly compromised with any sustained layoff. Forget about any race you had scheduled that will entice you to over commitment to severe mileage or speed build ups. If you’re not 20 years old, it will backfire. Start with a modest weekly mileage, at least half of your pre-injury mileage before the layoff. Depending upon your previous fitness level and length of layoff, you might need to start your base building from scratch. Be careful of doing too much mileage, but it’s better to overdue mileage a bit, than to do it too fast. A good way to build mileage is to take regular walk breaks.

Go Solo, Hans
Running with a partner is a great way to stay motivated and provide you with a little competitive challenge. However, stay clear of your training partner while you get back up to speed. The temptation will be there to go too fast or too long when resuming exercising with a partner. It will be depressing trying to stay up with your partner as they easily glide along, or so it seems. Give yourself some time to get closer to your normal pace before resuming training with a partner. If you plan on running for as long as possible in life, you have plenty of time to get up to speed. Pick a long term, realistic goal and stick with it.

Survival of the Fittest

Wow, what a difference a couple of inches make. No, I didn’t get a free sample of a male enhancement product. I got a professional fitting for my bike. An injury drove me to see if my problem could be my bike fit. The injury was quite literally a big pain the “you know what,” soreness in the gluteus and tight hamstrings. During the fitting I discovered that seat was too low, among other issues. You have seen the kids riding around on their bikes with the seats all the way down and their knees and legs sticking out like a bull rider walking home from a long day at work. On a small scale, this is what was happening to me, with the knees pushing out causing pressure in my gluteus and hamstrings. After a few rides on my “fit” bike, I’m feeling no pain and have more power and stamina.
I like to tinker around and be self sufficient, so I tried several times to fit my bike, based on instructions from a couple of bike repair books, but they were not comprehensive enough to get the job done correctly. Whether it’s your bike or running shoes, it’s often hit or miss on what works, and we normally go through a steep learning curve of trial and error before finding the right fit. Small variations in equipment fit can translate to big differences in performance, for better or worse. Getting the right advice upfront can save you time, effort and pain. If I had the fitting before my last race, I probably would have avoided the injury and the DNF (see The DNF Monster).
I finally gave up and went to a bike shop that offers the Cyfac Postural System (CPS). Since I have a degree in mathematics, I was attracted by the scientific basis for CPS which “performs a multi-factorial analysis of the rider.” It accounts for individual body measurements and captures the rider's muscular, vascular, skeletal, and circulatory systems for a unique rider profile. The result is a print out that gives you all the bike measurements and angles that are best for you. It even tells you how to set up the cleats on your shoes. You are now equipped to adjust your bike on your own later, such as the need to replace the seat, to break it down for shipping, etc. You can also use the print out to order a custom bike to the exact specifications for you.
Whether you use CPS or some other “system”, you should look for a process that not only makes the correct adjustments, but gives you the information you need to maintain your equipment. If the information is locked in the head of your bike mechanic, you can’t make the necessary adjustments “in the field” or when you buy new equipment for the bike. I’m amazed how such a small change made a huge difference in my performance. And there is no need for some questionable chemical boost for this enhancement; it just makes what you have better.

The DNF Monster

My last race was a DNF, which is the polite way to say “Did Not Finish”. Drop out, quit, give up; no matter how you say DNF, it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. Sure even professionals have done it, including Allan Webb in the Carlsbad 5000 recently and Paula Radcliffe in the 2004 Olympic marathon, to name just two. The finish line area is just not as festive and fun. You stare blankly listening to people recounting the good, the bad and the ugly of their race. Sure, some of them had a terrible race, but at least they finished. Now you don’t even feel like wearing the stupid race t-shirt; it goes right into the cleaning rag pile.

For many races, you prepare for months and sacrifice time and money to get to starting line. Perhaps you had a goal in mind, dreamed of a PR, or just wanted to finish. But you probably didn’t think about packing it in. Most of us don’t mentally prepare for it. We don’t want to even consider it. A DNF never stands for something good; an injury, equipment malfunction, accident, having a “bad” day, or, worst of all, total body and mind collapse.

I had an injury. Once home, showered, and fed I sat back and began to decipher the DNF. Every race tells you something. It amplifies your training, your life, your stresses, and everything you thought you could ignore and hope that it goes away. In my case I reinjured a hamstring. A race will find your weak spot and attacked it unmercifully. Why it acted up was the million dollar question? It was doing fine before the race. I’m not sure, but I did break one of the fundamental rules of racing—changing equipment, my bike, too close to a race. Injury, breaking down, and even most accidents, point to ignoring what our mind and body are trying to tell us. Slow down and heal, prepare better, eat healthy, diffuse the stress, set proper goals, and many other insightful things, if we would just listen.

We are just programmed to hate quitting. Our forefathers would have been trampled by that Mastodon if they gave up. And we all have seen athletes fight through incredible pain to compete. Pain is fear leaving the body, right? So how do you know when to pack it in or to fight through the pain? Good question. I think that we intuitively know when we can’t go on or it’s not worth the possibility of long term “downtime” to achieve the short term goal of finishing. Often we choose to ignore it and pay the consequences. I had made my goal of a good swim segment and finishing wasn’t worth inflicting further damage. I have learned, the hard way, that the higher you climb the age group ladder, the longer it takes to recovery from an injury. Humans can do incredible things when we put our minds to it. And most of the time we can do much more than we realize and should fight through our mental and physical barriers, but not this time for me. I hope that time does heal all, and helps minimize the distance between this Did Not Finish and the next Did Not Fail.

Sink or Swim

Last year on June 24, 2007, my 56th birthday, I was floating in murky harbor water with my fellow age-groupers waiting for the start of a triathlon, my first. I was excited and nervous about my initiation into the fraternity. Just 9 months prior I was floating in the recovery room after surgery for a torn meniscus. Six months prior I hadn’t swam a stroke in almost forty years. These facts were locked away in my subconscious as I surveyed the 500 meter course. In the pool, in 25m bites, a 500 hardly seemed daunting, even for a beginner. Now, however, as I looked at the string of buoys laid out in the protected harbor, it looked like more than a trivial pursuit.

I had always cycled a bit, and at age 51 I started running again. I was just one leg short of a tri. My training partner and good friend, Marianne, had taken up triathlon and I was intrigued. The competitive weasel in me perked up his ears, but I still fancied myself as a runner, harking back to my days in high school track and cross country. A severed Achilles tendon had set me back in my rebirth as a runner. Then eighteen months later a torn meniscus threatened my running career again. Something had to be done. If the knee didn’t heal right, I would now be two legs short of a tri. Cross training was the answer. Less running, more cross. I started cycling again and decided to give swimming a go. It’s like riding a bicycle, right? Just dive in and the muscle memory will take over. So I joined a gym with a pool, bought the paraphernalia, and slid in the water for my first swim. I barely made it one length of the pool, splashing and thrashing like a salmon out of water. After several weeks of this futile routine, I sought professional help. Six months of lessons and Master’s classes later, I felt confident enough to tackle my first triathlon.

The air horn blasted and my heart jumped into my throat as I took off like Michael Phelps. The surging pod of groupers swept me along, until all of sudden I couldn’t breath. I stopped to get a gulp of air, but that didn’t help. Meanwhile I could see the pod moving steadily away. Don’t panic, try again. Nope, I just couldn’t exhale in the water. I though about quitting, but continued on swimming on my back, dog paddling, and a heads up breast. After what seemed an eternity I finally got to the far buoy and turned for home. My arms were dead. My breathing was heavy. My mind was numb. But I was going to make it. I trudged out of the water totally dispirited, but determined to go on. T1 came and went. Out on the bike, I started to feel better. Now this feels normal. I climbed up the incline passing quite a few people as my damaged ego recovered a bit. When I came into T2, I saw my twin boys and my wife with big birthday signs. The announcer picked up on this and yelled out a happy birthday. This gave me a big surge as I quickly transition into my strength, the run. Somehow someone had tied a ball and chain to both of my legs and they wouldn’t move correctly. I staggered through the transition area in slow motion. As the family cheers grew fainter I crossed the timing mat and out into the course. After a few minutes, the feeling returned to the legs and I followed the winding run course. When I passed people, or they passed me, I checked out their age group on their calf. I didn’t see any in my age group; I thought they had already finished or were far ahead. Finally I spied someone in my age group within a half mile of the finish. At least I’ll finish ahead of one person, I thought, as I sped by. I finished, and although completely unsatisfied with my swim, I was a triathlete. I enjoyed the festivities and slowly made my way back to the car with my training, and now tri-partner.

A few days later I saw the results in the paper. I browsed down through the age groups until I stopped at mine. I blinked, looked again, than grew a half-smile, half-smirk, and laughed out loud. There in the paper, in third place, was my name, Steve Edwards. Somehow I had passed 10 people, medaled, and got my name in the paper. The trial by water was worth it. No way I could give up swimming and go back to being a one- or two-legged stool. After another year of snorting air, counting laps, and smelling like chlorine, I’m still no Michael Phelps. But I’m just crazy enough to try my first Olympic triathlon and swim three times as far, whether it’s on my back, side, or front. In fact, I’m looking forward to this new stroke called the kelp crawl used at the Pacific Grove triathlon; now that sounds my speed.

My Club Runn’th Over

My running club is full of character(s), charisma, and community. Six years ago when I joined, I was just looking to get better. And I did, but more importantly I ended up with friendship, motivation, and purpose. I started as a person who ran and ended up with a running lifestyle.
In the infancy of my rebirth as a runner, I was the typical Hans Solo, pounding out the miles alone in my thoughts, in my struggle against the ravages of time. First it was jog a little, walk a little, until something resembling running was at hand. I took a mere forty years off since running in high school track and cross country, and I now had to pay the price. The sludge in my legs and around the waist meant a more pedestrian pace. But somewhere down deep I could sense that a drop of cheetah blood still coursed through my veins. That blood called to me. Run fast. Oh hell, just run faster than this. My running club helped me find my “inner cheetah”, the best I could be. Now growing older is exciting, one more year closer to the next age group.
Are you ready to go clubbing? If you want to grow in ability as well as become part of a crazy, passionate community, then do it. How else can you get yourself up before the sun rises on Saturday or Sunday every week year after year to go for a long run without other demented people around you? Run like a cheetah, at least in your mind, on track day, charge up hills en mass, or go for a “friendly” tempo with one or more of your brethren, constantly one upping the pace.
I was lucky in my choice of club, because it grew organically, held together with a knowledgeable, supportive coach and a good cross section of dedicated groupies. I had runners to chase after as I improved, some close to my ability to get competitive with, and others just to marvel at their abilities as they flew by.
Today, there are clubs for every flavor of runner. Some cater to a specific race or train for a variety of races. Others are national in scope and use coaches trained in a unified approach. To find the right club for you, write down your goals and ask lots of questions. Are you interested in marathons, 5ks, or everything in between? Ask what type of training or experience the coach/leader has? How many people run on a regular basis? What types of runs do they “host”? (Long runs, track, tempo runs, hill runs, etc.) Where are they hosted? (The same location every week, or do they change it around a bit.) Are there people who run your pace, whether you are a beginner or top age grouper?
Our club, for example, is more focused on marathons, although many do triathlons and shorter running races. Quite a few of them have qualified for Boston. You need to meet a time goal based on your age to qualify to run at the Boston Marathon. However, even if you just want to finish a marathon, a club with experienced marathoners will provide you with plenty of good advice and invaluable support.
Is there a dark side of clubbing? Of course, it’s real easy to get too competitive with your running partners, run way too fast, especially on long runs, and get injured. I highly recommend a heart monitor to judge effort and pace (You HAVE to read Heart Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot by John L. Parker, Jr.) and to stick to your training plan. You might also succumb to peer pressure or fall trap to the excitement of others and enter races you shouldn’t. Lay out a yearly plan with your coach, and running partners, and run races that match your goals and training. So next time you’re out jogging with Chewbacca and see a pack of smiling people run by, ask them what club they’re in (if you don’t notice their club shirts, hats, pants, etc.), and check it out.

Lionel the Lab Rat

Don’t fret for Lionel. He isn’t abused by some corporate Dr. Frankenstein performing Clock Work Orange experiments that twist his little rodent body, mind and soul. He is a complete volunteer participant in an on-going, self-experiment that tests his limits and sanity. His self-inflicted experiments are based on new ideas he finds in all the fitness, running, triathlon, and biking magazines, web sites, blogs, and books he can get his hands on. The bottom of his cage is covered with clippings and copies of his favorites. And almost every week he finds a new training experiment to test. He might be intrigued by the interval training of some star or star’s coach. Great, he jumps on the wheel and cranks it out. Or he’s drawn to a gravity-based, old school core workout. Next thing you know he’s hanging from the top of the cage doing pull ups and leg raises. You can imagine that Lionel’s training schedule is in constant flux with all the new activity. Results are generally positive, but interspersed with periods of time off due to injuries or exhaustion, which seem to occur just when he’s rounding into top shape and close to a key race!
Are you a little like Lionel? Most of us want to push it to the limit in search of a new personal record (PR). Every second lower is exciting and makes us feel like we are moving forward. We learn, we observe, we test, we succeed, and often we also fail. Then we get healthy and start the cycle all over again. How often do you go over the edge and pay the price for doing too much or trying too hard? It’s human, err rat nature. The problem is that we usually don’t know where the edge is located until we look down, like Wile E. Coyote, in midair and see our training scream to a halt, again.
The answer Lionel, and all of us, seek is how to find the scope and depth of training that works best for him without burn out, injury, or an unrealistic training schedule. If you follow pro athlete injury reports, it seems that the answer isn’t readily found, even by the world’s best athletes and coaches. Many become Lionels and look, and sometimes find, it through trial and error. And after all these years, Lionel also doesn’t have the magic formula that works for everyone! However, through all his efforts, he did find a few axioms that help guide his training (not counting relapses). Across the top of his cage, he has two banners that he has to read each and every day, as he is apt to forget: “A single workout won’t make a champion (PR), but can break one,” and “Consistency over time equals success.” Lionel has learned the hard way that while each workout is designed to accomplish a goal, it is also part of a foundation that’s built over time. Injuries and burn out make the foundation weaker. He now views his “career” as lasting a lifetime, which helps him keep the big picture in focus, and not worry about any one workout. Of course, Lionel stills tries new things (you can take the rat out of the lab…), but works them in more slowly into the schedule, doesn’t increase the duration or difficulty too quickly, and whenever possible, chooses less over more. He’s been reading a lot about how less is more lately. Now that’s anathema to a lab rat with testosterone problems, but you know by now that he’s willing to give it a try. Until next time, Lionel is off to spin class.

Wilson, My Companion & Therapist

Tom Hanks' character had Wilson in Shipwreak. He was his "go-to-guy" who got him through some tough times. I also have a Wilson. Mine, however, is a different species. He's yellow and much smaller. He's from the Tennis tribe. He's a good friend, because he understands what to do about all the little aches and pains all over the body that build up day after day from core exercising, swimming, biking, and running. Or is it just from getting older? The best thing is that he doesn't deflate or get mushy, even during Hallmark movies. And he is a great massage therapist. Got a kink in your back, he's there rolling it out. How about a tight glute? Yep, he's digging in deep making you scream with delight. Sore shoulder. Stand next to a wall and wedge him in there for some pain/therapy.
I highly recommend that you learn the mysterious ways of the Wilson Tennis tribe. They are usually found in families of three, so you can always be close to one; in your bedroom, living room, and even in your car. Yes, while driving, I often put Wilson just below my shoulders or on the lower back for quick relief from a previous day's workout tightness. He is quiet friend and fits nicely into the cup holder in the front seat. Use Wilson every day on your foot pain. Stand on Wilson and roll him back and forth in your instep for an instant foot massage. Lay down and wedge him between your glute and the ground, then slowly rotate back and forth towards your hip and back.
Wilson is very supportive. He doesn't judge me for my over zealous approach to training, and never points out that I'm way overdue for getting my AARP card, and should slow down a bit. Besides the soreness, injuries, and exhaustion, my training schedule makes perfect sense to me. Wilson is the perfect sidekick for anyone who needs some on-going deep tissue work at a very reasonable cost. Everyday I reach out to Wilson, and he delivers. Remember, to see your physician, have an MRI, Cat Scan, and colonoscopy before engaging in anything that may be harmful to your health. Most of all, just do something and have fun. Set, match, point.