The Injury: Part 3

The Search for Remedies

Having an injury, especially a "minor" injury that mimics the normal aches and pains of training, is a little like being lost in the woods: you often feel absolutely sure you know where you are, but after an hour or so of puzzling effort, you realize you have no idea where you are going.

I really had no idea why running was suddenly so hard, and very little idea of what to do about it. I tried a lot of things: I tried taking days off. I tried cross-training. I tried stretching more, stretching less, stretching differently, not stretching, stretching in the middle of runs, stretching while watching TV... I tried doing all my runs slower, I tried focusing on different aspects of my stride to isolate what was going wrong. The net effect of all of this experimentation was about the same: I felt more or less ok when I didn't run, and then when I tried to run more than four miles or faster than 7:30 pace, I was right back to the same pattern of feeling really uncoordinated and fatigued.

I had made up my mind to get some good massage therapy, and that was the first thing that really made a difference. I went in complaining about my hamstrings, but I admitted I didn't really know what the problem was. During the first session, the muscular therapist didn't identify a single cause of all my misery (I was alittle disappointed), but with his competent digging into my tissues he did find a few "trigger points" in the hamstring muscles and worked on them. I went back a week later and he REALLY worked on them, bringing me to the point of tears several times.

The results were good: I was now able to run more or less normally for 5-6 miles and the tightness in my hamstrings seemed to be very much relieved. Plus the memory of the massage and where he had found problems helped guide my own stretching and "tennis-ball therapy." I was encouraged. I knew I had lost a lot of fitness, but I decided to run at the nationals anyway. I guess I was hoping that we had solved the problem and that I would be able to contend for a medal in my new age category (50-54).

I know how the stock market feels

Since it has been held in Boston, I have run the Indoor Nationals almost every year. Two years ago I doubled in the M45-49 3000 and 1M. Last year (my last in that age category) I ran the mile. This year was to be my debut in the M50-54 category, and I planned to run the 3000. I figured that I still had endurance, even if I had lost some of my speed.

In January (prior to the injury), I had run 9:33. If I could come anywhere close to that, I figured I would have a chance at a medal. I chose to view my 5:00 mile as an aberration and -- newly massaged -- I went into the meet with a good attitude and the intention of running well.

The race went out fast, but I stayed back a bit. I've always felt confident running from behind so this was no big deal. I passed 400m in 78, about 3s behind the lead pack. However, instead of feeling smooth and under control, I felt really tired, laboring already. I started running 40s laps, settling into 10th place where I posed no threat the leaders. I went through the mile in 5:18 and felt no energy at all. It really took all I had to keep grinding away, but I finally finished in just over 10 minutes. I had lost a half minute of fitness in two months, and gone run all-out to run a 3K that was slower than what I could run for 5K a year earlier.

I was pretty discouraged.

I had heard of runners who experienced precipitous declines, becoming slow seemingly overnight. It was maddening because I still did not have a clear idea of what was going on. In fact, my "decline" had begun long before my January injury. I had been running poorly for a long time. Let me qualify that: In March 2007 I ran a half marathon in 1:16:49 -- 5:56 pace. From that high-water mark, I had submitted the following performances:

10K in 35:50 / 5:47 pace (April 08)
10M in 61:00 / 6:06 pace (July 08)
5M in 32:30 / 6:30 pace (Sept 08) **

That 5M race was the worst race of my life. I never imagined a race could be so slow and so difficult at the same time. Yes, it was a hot day, but I had routinely done training runs at that pace. After two miles, I was struggling. After three miles, the world was a grim and forbidding place. At four miles, I had to stop and walk for about a minute. It was embarrassing, but my body just wasn't working right.

I didn't race much the rest of the fall, and when I did, I tried to have very low expectations. Indoor track was supposed to be my return to racing form, but there I was in March of this year, running dramatically slower times and still nursing my mysterious injury.

I felt it was time to take a fresh look at things.