Some Thoughts on Dealing with Injury and Alternate Training.

Some Thoughts on Dealing with Injury and Alternate Training

So two weeks ago I had one of my best races in a long time and came up limping 20 minutes after the race. I didn’t mention it in the last article because I was hoping it would just go away and be nothing. I have really been putting in some good concentrated efforts lately and peaked at the right time but then disaster. Although it appears I might have a stress fracture in the lower third of my left Tibia, it has not been confirmed. My doctor said that he thought x-rays looked negative but they often do right after this kind of injury. After speaking with the radiologist a week later he says the radiologist thinks he sees a possible injury site, so now a bone scan is next (Monday, May 13). Either way I am not supposed to run for 4-6 weeks at least. What do I do?

The first week I simply tried staying off of the leg as much as possible. At this writing it has now been 14 days since the injury, and most if not all of the pain is gone. I can walk without pain although I have yet to try walking fast or far.

Tuesday I swam 500 yards in a local pool, which is a pretty good workout for me since I am a terrible swimmer. Wednesday I cycled for 30 miles and about 2hours time at a relatively easy pace and Friday I cycled for 40 miles. Both were OK’d by my doctor once the pain was gone. So far no pain from either of the bike rides.

I guess you could say that I am lucky because my injury still lets me stay somewhat active and I can do sports that would normally be called cross training. I do feel lucky in that regard but I also feel a little bit cheated because I had big plans. I had a marathon planned 6 weeks after the half marathon and everything was pointing to a pretty easy Boston qualifying time. I was not even thinking about the possibility of just squeaking in under the time, I was thinking about pretty much being 10 to 15 minutes under that time for sure.

So yeah, I am a bit depressed and frustrated right now. I know it will pass but I need to vent a little. So you get to be the recipients of my venting. I don’t know if this will help me deal with the time off from running but right now I feel a little bit better just writing this down. @&%$ %^*&!$!, OK I said it, you can put in your own words. But now that I’ve let out my frustrations a little, what caused me to get injured in the first place?

Part of me wants to just think that it is a fluke but another part of me says that is a cop out! You see I did have a warning sign that something could be wrong after my long run the week before, and should probably have taken the whole week off. I came up a little sore in the same general area the evening of that last long run. I had run a little harder on the downhill than I normally would have on any other long run. I had also been doing a lot of extra hill running the previous 6 weeks preparing for this race. In hindsight I should have probably given myself at least every other week off from hills, especially as I was also doing two tempo runs a week. Bottom line is I probably crossed that fine line between simply peaking and actually overtraining.

So here I am whining about being injured and it is probably my own fault. Perhaps if I had just taken the whole week off I would not have had the injury. But, there is always the possibility that I was already injured and still would have injured myself more even with the rest. I guess we will never know for sure. Either way, here I am injured and, now I have to deal with it!

So yes I am lucky that I can cycle and swim and even perhaps do some “Pool Running.” I do enjoy cycling although not quite as much as running. Swimming not so much and there is nothing more boring than Pool Running. However, I know that these things will keep me in pretty good shape and getting back to where I was will not be all that difficult because of it.

I am trying to be good and not injure myself more by running before I am fully healed and then I will have to curb my enthusiasm as I start running again and not try and pick up where I left off. From another stand point it is an opportunity to work on my swimming that I have been putting off for a long time simply because I am terrible at it!

So here’s to alternate training and getting healthy again!

Cheers and Happy Trails,

Russ