That’ll Leave a Mark

It came upon me so quickly, like jumping into a pool of hurt.  I’d diagnose it as overtraining, but looking over my fitness record, I’m not seeing the “over” part of that condition.  Maybe the bar got lowered on my performance and no one included me on the distribution list.  Whatever the explanation, I am beat.  My legs are tired, sore and stiff.

Exhibit A was that 21 mile run a month ago that was 40 seconds per mile slower than my usual long training run.  Exhibit B was the first RMRR fall Marathon Training Series 20 mile race a few weeks ago.  With five miles to go my pace rose a full minute per mile.  Exhibit C was today’s 20 miler.  I have run much faster training runs.  Times and paces are relative and one man’s slow is another man’s fast, so I won’t bore you with specifics. 

Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, defines overtraining as a physical, behavioral, and emotional condition that occurs when the volume and intensity of an individual's exercise exceeds their recovery capacity.  Maybe that is what I’m suffering, but I’m not fully convinced.  It is difficult to identify the issues, but the results are hard for me to accept.  Could it be that I’m slowing down and just need to adjust my expectations and learn to grow slow gracefully?  At every race there are guys who pound the ground far more minutes than I do and they receive my admiration.  Part of being an endurance athlete is being able to endure and pain is part of the gift we share.

There’s the pain of tearing your Labrum; generically called the rotator cuff.  In October 2009 I tripped and stuck my right arm out to catch my fall.  I knew instantly that damage had been done.  I waited six months, until after ski season, to have surgery to repair it. 

There’s the pain of dislocating your shoulder.  I crashed while leading a criterium in 1986 and can still recall the pain of pushing my shoulder back into its socket. 

There’s the pain of breaking a bone.  When I was in eighth grade I broke a bone in my hand while tagging a runner out in a baseball game.  That was on a Thursday evening.  I finished the game, played trumpet in a concert the next night and played another baseball game Saturday morning.  It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that I had the bone set.  I also broke a bone in my foot in 2008 and ran several miles before being convinced to wear a walking cast.

There’s the pain of a spinal headache where there is not enough cerebrospinal fluid in the brain.  I lost two days of my life from this while I laid on the floor in the fetal position.  Any movement led to a round of vomiting. 

There’s the pain of running the 2005 Boulder Backroads Marathon with a torn hamstring.  I qualified for Boston at that race.  There’s a great photo of the back of my leg, red from the subcutaneous hemorrhaging. 

Then there’s the reality of declining performance.  It is the unspoken part of the trinity; death and taxes.  It is the 800 pound elephant at the refreshment table after races.  Old guys may rule, but they can’t beat Eric Greene in a foot race.  Mandatory retirement for most occupations was eliminated by the EEOC in 1967.  The way I feel right now we should impose it in amateur athletics.  It would give me a way to save face.  My cop out would be ‘sorry guys, I’d love to keep racing, but they have their rules’.  But at what age do we make the cut-off? 

More impressive still is the pain that Scott Jurik describes in his book “Eat & Run”.  Scott is a legend among hard-core runners and has fashioned a lucrative career as an ultramarathoner.  He runs, and wins, grueling races in excess of 100 miles, in a wide array of usually inhospitable environments: Death Valley, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Mexico’s Copper Canyon.  And he does it on a completely plant-based diet.  His story is one of an average Midwestern kid growing up on meat he caught or killed himself who becomes a vegan elite athlete.  The book is part memoir, part training guide, part vegan manifesto.  The inspirational message is that running is less dependent on physical skill than it is on willpower.  The book is far more educational, informative and inspiring than this blog.  Log off now and go buy his book.