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Beating the Injury Bug

By Myles Dannhausen Jr.

 

When I woke one morning last week and flipped open my laptop (those two things should not immidiately follow each other, but sadly for me, they usually do) I had an email from Runner's World with the headline, "The 10 Laws of Injury Prevention."

It's full of great, simple advice for all runners, especially our first-time runners in the Door County Half Marathon. Reading it left me feeling extremely lucky, considering that I did nearly everything wrong as I trained for the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon – my first – last spring.

Before I ran the Green Bay I had never run more than a 10k. I was in decent shape, but had a body riddled with injuries, the worst of which was a bad groin pull I had just suffered playing broomball (a clumsy, modified version of hockey without the skates or athleticism). Looking back on it, that groin injury is probably the only reason I was able to put in so many miles, so quickly, without my body rebelling on me.

One of the pieces of Runner's World advice is to shorten your stride. Well, my groin pull limited my ability to stride at all and made me deathly afraid of slipping on the icy roads of Baileys Harbor, so it forced me to keep my steps short and choppy. It wasn't easy - I'm a guy prone to competing full speed, hopping on a treadmill and running my fastest 5k every time - but the pain in my groin was so sharp when I overdid it that it kept me in check.

It also slowed me down. My roommate at the time, Jake, was an experienced marathoner who has qualified for Boston, and he was adament about one thing – go slow. He said it often, and emphasized it by saying, "if you think you're going slow enough, go a little slower." He also took great humor in my absurd training pace, and gave me many a raised eyebrow when he saw me walk into the house looking like death warmed over, making a bee-line to the ice packs and advil.

(Jake was also a tremendous resource. He's a running dork, in the best of ways. He would talk about it all day long if I let him, which I often did. Maybe the best advice I can offer for a first-time runner is to find a running dork friend and lean on him or her. If you're serious about this, you're going to train for hours each week, and you're going to want to talk about it. My favorite pieces of advice from Jake (with me before the Green Bay Marathon in the photo below. Jake is on the right.):

1. Go slower than you think you should.

2. It's OK to quit. Once in a while, you just don't feel it and you can cut the 8-mile run to four. That doesn't mean you're a failure, doesn't mean you can't do it. Just that today was not your day. The license to quit once in a while is a huge psychological edge.

3. Beer is carbs. You're putting a ton of miles in, it's OK to have a couple IPAs (though I wouldn't recomend over-doing it the night before your 15-mile run. That was decidedly not OK.)

The Runner's World article also says to get shoes that fit. I'm not much of a spender. I buy most of my clothes second-hand and I run my shoes into the ground. That is not smart. When I finally got fitted for proper running shoes about two weeks before race day, it eliminated some nagging pain in my feet and knees. When the lady who did my fitting saw my stride, her jaw dropped. She was shocked I didn't have terrible knee and ankle problems already.

Finally, the article suggests that you run on a level surface. I did most of my training on Door County roads, hugging the shoulder to be safe. Then I went for a run with our Race Director, Brian Fitzgerald, who asked if I was having any knee pain. The outside of my left knee had been badly irritated. I figured it had something to do with being slightly bow-legged, but I thought it strange that it was just one knee, not both.

He made a simple fix. "Run a few feet toward the center of the road," he suggested.

Be safe, you have to watch for cars, but they'll also be able to see you better. Plus, most of the roads I was running on welcomed a vehicle just a few times a day. Running against traffic, the outside of my left knee was taking the brunt of the pressure that comes with hundreds of steps on slightly sloping, crowned roads.

A few days after moving inward a few steps, the pain was gone.

When I stand near the finish line of the Door County Half Marathon in my role as course director, making sure everyone hears one last shout of support for those final 200 meters, I've become pretty good at spotting first-timers. They have a certain hopeful, accomplished, often teary look in their eye as they catch a glimpse of the finish (and sometimes a look in their pained stride).

It's my favorite part of the race, seeing people exceed the limits they once confined themselves to. For you first-timers out there, I urge you to give the injury prevention article a read, because I want to see all of you at the finish line May 5th.