Give Me a Break

I know I should be grateful. I know it could be a lot worse. I know this is a relatively minor setback in the grand scheme of things.

But a stress fracture three weeks before my first overseas marathon?! It’s enough to make you weep. (Actually, I have wept. A lot).

After the doctor showed me the tell-tale mark on the X-ray and gave my foot a confirmatory squeeze, I made the kind of frantic suggestions you try with God when you suddenly realise your exams are far too close for you to pass without intense cramming and divine intervention.

I tried “What if I…?” in several different combinations, but to no avail. The doctor shook his head and looked at me as if I should perhaps be attending an entirely different kind of hospital as I suggested resting my foot for the full three weeks and then running really, really slowly. Or partially resting it and working up to a gentle jog. Or walking the entire thing…

But I’m going to Palestine, I pleaded. We then had a very interesting chat about the situation in the Middle East (I did not know that the queen of Jordan is Palestinian), and I felt we had built up some rapport, but he still would not come around to my way of thinking. The most he would allow was a symbolic half-mile walk. With a crutch.

“So how long is it, anyway?”

“26 miles,” I muttered.

I felt our newfound connection fizzle out in the stuffy atmosphere of a hospital consulting room. All hope gone, I dutifully repeated my recovery schedule after him: One week with the support boot and one crutch, two weeks with just the boot (walking on the heel), one week with the crutch and good runners, and a follow-up appointment on April 6th. Five days after the marathon.

“Of course, if you were ten years  old, you’d be up and about in two weeks, but at your age…” He shrugged and shook his head at the X-ray of my poor, elderly metatarsals. I clambered to my feet, wondering was he about to offer me a walking frame instead of the crutches.

So that’s it. I know it could be a lot worse, but please don’t tell me that: These crutches pack quite a punch.

 

 

The Softer Side of Running Injuries

Thumper

Injuries: It’s a word that sends shivers up even the most well-aligned runner’s spine. The moment a muscle or a tendon announces its presence with even the tiniest squeak, you start to worry. You keep going, gingerly testing the protesting body part or striding along in denial, hoping it just shuts up and leaves you alone. Because an injury is a right pain in the ass/calf/heel.

Sometimes you are lucky. You rest up for a day or two and the pain disappears. Sometimes you have to work harder at it; you get out the foam roller, the ice pack, the support bandages, and you’re remedial work pays off eventually. Then there are the knots and tears that just move in and decide to stay. Massage, once something you look forward to as a relaxing treat, becomes a particularly vicious form of torture.

I thought it was just an age thing. I rarely picked up running injuries until about six months ago, when my body started falling apart like an old car held together with baling twine. Niggling lower back pain twinged now and then, a gentle intro to savage glute problems that have only just started to ease. Then knives seemed to take root in my right arch, stabbing me with each step. I even got shin splints, something I had not experienced since my first half-hearted attempts at running as an overweight college student in plimsolls.

Now it turns out my advancing years might not be the problem (or not all of the problem, at least). According to a study by Harvard Medical School and the National Running Center at Harvard-affiliated Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, it’s all in the footfall. The researchers examined the strides of 249 female recreational athletes by recording the impact of their steps using a force plate. They found that the key difference between athletes who were rarely or never injured and those who were injured regularly was the suddenness of impact. Unsurprisingly, softer landers fare better – just as you might hurt less if you jumped from a height and landed with flexed joints than if you landed stiff-legged.

So now I must try to quit stomping and start gliding. Apparently, one way to run softer is to listen to your steps: Gliders creep up on you without a sound, whereas Thumpers like me rarely give anybody a start with the stealthiness of their approach.

Well, spring is on the way. Maybe I’ll be tiptoeing through the tulips to a pain-free summer…

Hitting the Wall

There are days when you head out for a run, and everything is just bouncy. You spring along that road, powered by invisible Slinkies in your shoes, and the miles slip by as if you were being wound in by a magnanimous virtual fisherman. Today was not one of those days.

Today, an eight-mile run had less appeal than the inside of my son’s gym bag, and I put off the inevitable with repeated adjustments of laces and grumpy glances at the lowering sky. So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that, when I finally did trudge through about two miles of thumping misery, my left hamstring had started to whine and my right quad muscle was getting very uptight about having to carry its wimpy cousin again. All that smug self-satisfaction at adjusting my form to become a real runner started to look pretty silly, even though last Friday’s pain-free 20-miler had me convinced I had the whole thing sussed.

With the first icy slaps of polar rain hitting my face, I fought the urge to take the first turn for home and tried to get things working properly. Back straight? Check, I think. Arms high? I suppose so? Feet meeting the ground gently at the front and rolling easily backward? Probably not.  This is the thing: Without a coach or video evidence, it’s impossible for me to make an accurate assessment of my running style, and, whereas I may think I’m covering the ground with gazelle-like grace, in all probability I’m thundering along like a mammoth armadillo.

(In fact, on an unrelated note, maybe that’s why some people didn’t greet me as I run. If I catch the eye of a fellow park user when I’m out, I always say hello, but the number of people who simply stared blankly at me on my run today is making me even grumpier. Were I confronted with a scarlet-faced, heavy-breathing juggernaut in trainers, however, I probably would avoid all communication too).

So, I’ve decided to park my running form rehabilitation for the moment. I will continue to try running more on the balls of my feet and keep my back straight, but until after the Lakes of Killarney Marathon on May 16th, I will go back to downing a couple of Nurofen Plus before I head out on a training run, and keep myself going by compiling a list of the movies I intend watching on May 17th. Chariots of Fire is not on the list.

On the positive side, whatever about my hamstring and quad, I shouldn’t suffer any more strain from attempting to pat myself on the back.