My Tragic Tale, Or What Have I Been Up To Lately?

This is a bit like reliving a nightmare. I really haven't wanted to talk about any of this for several months, but I can't push it off any longer, so here we go...

Where does the time go? I was reading through the old posts here and I didn’t see anything that explained my running situation – even last year, so I’ll start from the beginning.

I hurt my hip in September of 2007 by falling off of a stepladder. It wasn’t a terribly long fall; only a few feet. The problem was that I landed directly on top of the ladder and severely bruised my right hip (at least that’s what I think I did). I should have gone to the doctor, but I didn’t. I should have taken some time off from running to recuperate, but I didn’t do that either. Instead, I tried to jump right back into training. The problem was that I had zero power in my right hip as well as a compromised range of motion for several months thereafter. Even so, I continued to run. The lack of strength in my right hip led to some over-compensation with respect my left leg and I eventually strained my left hamstring – right up at the very top of the hamstring. Those, I’m told, take a long time to heal. Unfortunately for me, I’m not very patient.

I decided to run the Philadelphia marathon, but instead of racing it, I paced a couple of friends. No problem, I’m being good by not pushing it, right? Well, I built up the mileage to about 200 miles per month in January and February ’08 – that when I started this blog – to keep track of my running. Well, my hamstring continued to act up and I kept injuring it – over and over and over. So, if you’ve read this blog at all, you’ll know that I was planning to run both the New Bedford Half-Marathon as well as Boston last year – neither of those happened as I was nursing my hamstring injury. I was able, however, to obtain a medical deferral for Boston ’08.

It was in early March that my training started to go to hell. I couldn’t get in the miles due to the injury and soon thereafter my motivation started to wane as well. It remained this way for much of the summer – I’d run a bit and then re-injure the hamstring (you’d think that I’d try to strengthen it by now, wouldn’t you?). At this point I decided that I was in pretty pathetic shape and that I needed to rebuild my base, so I began a low heart rate training regiment. This actually worked pretty well, but it was extremely aggravating. I started off with a pace that was just under 10 minutes per mile, but soon dropped to the low nines, then the high eights. As fall rolled around, I could occasionally run a mile in under eight minutes while maintaining my target heart rate.

By October, I managed to build up my monthly mileage to just under 200 per month again and decided that it’d be ok to run the Baystate Marathon in Lowell, Massachusetts. I had done no speed work and no real long runs worth mentioning, so I can’t explain why I thought that this was a good idea. The race started off well. I wanted to treat it as an exceptionally long training run and was cruising through 20 miles at about a 3:35 pace. That’s when disaster struck. Just past the 20 mile marker, I felt a shooting pain going through my left knee. I stopped momentarily to see how serious the injury was. After a minute or two I ultimately concluded that my knee was nothing to worry about, but it was a cold day and my muscles quickly stiffened up. The bottom line was that I could not get my body back in motion after stopping except for a painfully slow trot over the last .2 miles. My 3:35 turned into a 4:48 with the last 6 miles all walked. It also turned out that I had injured myself, yet again - the hamstring as well as a nice case of plantar fasciitis. I had to shut my running down entirely – this time until I was completely healed. That took almost two months. Unfortunately for my training apathy, frustration and a touch of laziness had set in and I failed to run for all of December and most of January as well.

If you look back, you’ll see that my weight as of 1/1/08 was 184.5. That was 20 pounds heavier than I was earlier in the year. Well, this year I topped out at 202. So, I have a long way to go to reclaim my old running form. Needless to say, I’m not going to be able to run Boston ’09 either. That’s ok with me though, I’d rather re-qualify than run it in my current condition.

So, what am I up to now? Well, I’m going to run for the first time is a long time tonight. I’m hoping to be able to get through 2-3 miles without dying. I’ll probably continue with my low heart rate training for now and see how quickly I can get back into shape. I’m also going to try to get back down to that elusive 150 pound mark that I mentioned last year through a combination of running, strength training and diet. I’ve also signed up for another marathon – the Lake Placid Marathon - it’s going to be run on June 14th and my goal there will simply be to finish. Then, hopefully, I’ll be able to take another shot at a Boston Qualifier in November at the Outer Banks Marathon.

Whew! That’s a lot for one post. Anyway, at least now his blog will have a theme to it – triumph over adversity. Hopefully I’ve got it in me. Only time will tell.