I don’t have a race this weekend. It’s my first weekend without a race since
early August, and it’s my last weekend without a race until late December. Next weekend, I begin the home stretch of my
2015 race schedule. Looking at the
number of races on my calendar, I’m more than a little bit intimidated.
Since early May, I’ve been coping with a groin strain in my
right leg. Initially, I cut back on
training, cancelled a race, quit halfway through another race and then hoped I
could recover in time for the Comrades Marathon. I repeated that pattern for another
month. I had a few breaks in my
schedule, but it was never enough time to fully recover.
In July, I started racing with the top of my right thigh
bandaged. That helped me get through
races without doing further damage to my right leg. Unfortunately, I was developing a less severe
injury to the same muscles in my left leg.
With each race, my left leg got noticeable worse, until I was more
concerned about my left leg than my right leg.
By then, I was also having another problem, which began to
overshadow the injuries. I have a
circulation disorder that sometimes causes me to lose blood flow to my hands
and arms. When I was young, I had a
similar problem with my feet. After
years of running, I developed good blood flow in my legs and feet, and my
circulation problems seemed limited to my hands and arms. As my training dropped off, I started having
problems in my legs. Looking back, I
suspect this has been developing slowly with age, but it didn’t get bad until I
stopped training. Evidently, all the
running I was doing effectively counteracted this condition.
The last break in my race schedule was in early August, when
I had three weeks between races. By
then, my training had dropped off to almost nothing. This is when my circulation issues got
worse. I couldn’t sit in a chair for
more than 10 minutes without my legs getting really stiff. It was worse after sleeping. When I woke up, moving my legs caused severe
cramps. Sometimes, the muscles in my
legs contracted so violently that it aggravated my groin strain. The benefit of resting during the day was
undone when I had cramps during the night.
That was a low point for me.
I didn’t realize yet what was causing the problems in my legs. Just moving around during the day was
sometimes difficult. Sleeping was an
ordeal. I started getting depressed.
Once I realized the problems in my legs were a symptom of my
Raynaud’s Syndrome, I was able to figure out ways to cope. We started setting our thermostat one degree
warmer. My condition is sensitive to
temperature. Keeping the house a little
bit warmer made my stiffness and nighttime cramps less severe. I also realized I could prevent my legs from
cramping by getting some circulation back into my legs before trying to
move. I didn’t have to use the muscles
that were most prone to cramping. By
moving one of my feet or partially bending and straightening one knee a few
times, I got some blood flow into my legs.
As soon as I restored circulation to one leg, the other leg came to life
as well. That was a useful epiphany.
Day to day living became more manageable, but the last major
break in my race schedule was behind me, and I was nowhere close to being healed. My right leg was no better and my left leg
was still getting worse.
At that point, I resigned myself to be coping with these
injuries for the rest of the year. I was
determined to say on schedule to run my 300th lifetime marathon in November at
the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon.
I was also determined to finish at least 51 marathons this year. If I could do it by mid-December, I would
have two months to heal before my first scheduled race of 2016.
I started taking it one week at a time. I started running with KT tape on both
legs. That worked wonders for my left
leg. With each passing week, I noticed
significant improvement. Unfortunately,
my right leg started getting worse. I
went back to wrapping my right leg with an elastic bandage. That helped my right leg, but my left leg got
worse again. Each week, I re-evaluate
what I can do to get through that week’s race.
If I could get through one week at a time, I would eventually get
through my race schedule. Then I could take
a long-overdue break. If I could reach
all my long-term goals, it would eventually be worth it.
Although I’ve continued racing, I haven’t done any quality
training since the original injury.
There have been a number of weeks when I did no running other than my
race. My fitness has gradually eroded. I’ve also discovered recently that if I slow
down too much in a race, my legs stiffen up, and then I can barely run at
all. It seems I need to run at a certain
pace to keep from having circulation issues in my legs, and I’m no longer in
good enough shape to sustain that pace for more than 10-15 miles. It wasn’t a big issue during hot summer
races. With cooler weather, I need to
run somewhat faster to get enough circulation in my legs.
I’m OK with running slower times, as long as I can beat the time limits and finish each race. If I only had one race per week, I think I
could keep doing that for two more months.
Unfortunately, my schedule is about to get insanely difficult.
From October 18th through December 13th, I have 16
races. That’s 16 races in just over two
months. To put that in perspective, I’ve
finished 17 races since the original injury, and that was five months ago.
My remaining schedule includes a double and two quadzillas. I can manage one race per week, but I haven’t
tried to race on consecutive days since the Firecracker Triple. That didn’t go well.
I’ve been asked more than once why I don’t take a
break. My best opportunity to do that
was in June. In retrospect, I should
have skipped the Bighorn Mountain 100.
Had I done that, I might have been able to heal completely before
July. Adding insult to injury, I wasn’t
even able to finish that race. I can’t
undo past mistakes. I can only deal with
my current situation. I’ve come too far
to quit now. I don’t know how I’ll do
this, but I have to try.
I may have bit off more than I can chew, but I’m not ready
to give up.
No comments:
Post a Comment