Running Pains Part II

As an endurance athlete (if I can call myself that), you become somewhat accustomed to at least some level of discomfort when training for your specific sport. Running definitely falls into this category. At first, there's nothing pleasurable about running and typically every step hurts so when I started feeling some pain in my thigh about a month ago I figured it was just the next level of discomfort that I needed to work through to get to that next great plateau. After a few weeks I noticed this pain wasn't going away but it certainly wasn't getting any worse so I figured I'd do my best to run through it in hopes that it would eventually disappear. The trick for me was to run the first quarter mile or so (usually with a limp) in pain but know that after those first few minutes the pain would go away and I'd be back to running my normal stride pain free. After the run, I'd feel better than ever before and think that I was finally through this hurdle but like that one loud neighbor that everyone has, it would always return the next day. Two weeks ago when I was out running one of my 8 mile runs, the pain didn't go away. In fact it got worse during the run. It was at this point that I knew something was wrong. It was also at this point that I could no longer hide the pain from my wife as I came hobbling through the door. Atypical for me and probably most males in the continental United States, I made a doctor's appointment the very next day to rule anything serious out. To shorten the story, once I worked my way through my primary physician I was finally able to get to see a sports medicine professional. There I had some x-rays done which showed nothing. Yes!!! No stress fractures so it's something muscular and I can keep my running hopes alive. Not so fast, the doctor wanted to perform a Bone Scan just to rule out any fractures that might be too small to show up on the usual x-ray. I had the test this past Friday and I'm happy to say that I'm no longer radioactive, but I did find out some bad news in the process. My worst fear came true, actually my two worst fears came true. The first one is that I do indeed have a stress fracture in my left femur. The second fear that came true is that unlike what I was telling everyone in grade school, the scan shows that I am not big boned but in fact, I am just fat. So much for being able to use that excuse!

In all seriousness, finding this out is horrible news. It completely redefines what I'm going to be doing for Columbus and in fact there is even a big question mark on whether I can even compete in Columbus which happens in only a few months time from now. My physician who is an avid marathoner who feels that there is still a chance I can do it, but I will have to throw out all ambitions of running a fast time and only focus on trying to finish it. As he said, I might have to settle for walking a portion of the race. Walking is a long ways away from my Boston qualifying time, but I guess I should be happy that it's nothing more serious than it is.

So what's my next step to recovery? Well, take it slow day by day and manage my recovery by what level of discomfort that I'm having. I will do what my doctor calls the 5/5/5 plan. For the first five days, starting today I will walk briskly every other day for 20 minutes. If I feel any pain doing this, then I'll stop and rest more. On the days that I'm not walking, I'll do some cross training like riding my bike or doing an elliptical machine or something at the gym. During the next 5 day cycle, I'll start to jog for 20 minutes. This jog will be at a slightly faster pace than my walk. Not fast enough to get cardio benefit out of it, only fast enough so that my left leg is striking the ground with all my body weight on it without the support of my right leg. Again, I will cross-train like crazy at this point to keep my cardio up high. If I feel any pain, I go back half a phase and start over. It's my hope that I don't feel any pain. The last cycle of 5 days will be running for 20 minutes. Again, not running for cardio but running a bit quicker than before so I get more repetitions on my left leg during the 20 minute time period. These will be run at about 2 minutes slower than my normal running pace, so for me I will target about a 9 minute/mile tempo. Most likely, I will even try to run these a bit slower like around 10 minute mile tempo just to take it a bit easier. If after all of this, I'm still pain free, I'm good to go on training, only I will take the schedule much, much, much easier at this point as I will be only running to condition myself for long runs and not necessarily for fast running. Here's to the hope that I can go pain free!

brian