“At Six feet four inches and two hundred thirty pounds, I’d been told many times that nature intended guys my size to post up under the hoop or take a bullet for the president, not pound our bulk down the pavement. And since I’d turned forty, I was starting to see why: in the five years since I’d stopped playing pick-up hoops and tried turning myself into a marathoner, I’d ripped my hamstring (twice), strained my Achilles tendons (repeatedly), sprained my ankles (both, alternately), suffered aching arches (regularly), and had to walk down stairs backward on tip-toe because my heels were so sore. … Take any other sport, and an injury rate like mine would classify me as defective. In running, it makes me normal. The real mutants are the runners who don’t get injured. Up to eight out of every ten runners are hurt every year. It doesn’t matter if you’re heavy or thin, speedy or slow, a marathon champ or a weekend huffer, you’re just as likely as the other guy to savage your knees, shins, hamstrings, hips, or heels.”
My favorite running podcast is by a wise man who also saw his life changed because he wanted to be fit enough to be active with his new son. At that time, he was in the two hundred and thirties, and unable to do most physical activity. Since starting running, he has a long list of injuries also, including a stress fracture.
I started running when I was two hundred and eighty pounds and did my first marathon when I was two hundred and fifty. I am now around two hundred and thirty and although I have lots of aches and pains, I do not have anything on my list that would move me out of McDougall’s “mutant” status.
Lessons?
1) I was an idiot to dig myself a deeper hole.
2) I am blessed as a runner to be able to train as much as I have while putting a higher weight stress on my legs without major injury. This doesn’t mean that I am immune, but it does mean that I need to change my mental picture of the fat, old, slow runner and realize that I can do more. I don’t have the natural lungs of a world class runner, or the slow twitch muscle make-up of a Kenyan, but I do have a gift and to waste it would be a tragedy.
I apologize to those who have been running a lot longer than me that look at this and say “duh” or wonder how it took so long for me to get here. I am probably slow, but this is new insight for me.
How does my realization in this area turn into motivation to keep me pushing on the dark days when it is cold and/or wet to drive myself farther and faster? Tips are welcome, but my mind is buzzing with thoughts already.
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