How to Get Hurt

How to Get Hurt

Both of my readers are aware that I am not great at staying healthy when I train. In fact, I’m really quite creative and excellent at getting hurt. There’s no secret to it really. For example, if I'm slated for a 10 miler, I run 12. If I'm supposed to run at 30 seconds over race pace, I run at race pace. Which, of course, is why I get hurt all the time. Doy. It’s simple.

Recently I was out in the blazing heat – which we haven’t had much of this summer in the Northwest – and noticed all sorts of runners out there. And not one of them seemed to be liming or dragging a foot or wearing all sorts of mechanical devices to patch their muscles and bones together. What gives? Why am I the only one out here in an ankle brace, knee brace, compression shorts, corrective shoes, a hernia belt and crutches? Don’t you people know that running is bad for your body?

I’m here to help. Getting injured really isn’t that hard if you stick to my plan.

• Set unreachable goals. This one is obvious. Why run at a reasonable pace and attack reasonable distances when you can get straight off the couch and enter a marathon? And don’t pick one of those flat, easy races that are held in the late spring. Pick a hilly race that takes place in late fall!
• Do more. Faster. Those training plans literally take weeks to complete. Why do that when you can get 60 miles in this week? If one long run a week is good, three are better! And why would you want to run those long miles so slowly? Get them over with. The faster the better!
• Don’t listen to your body. What does your body know? That pain in your right knee will go away on its own with a few more miles of running. It’s probably just tight anyway. Run a little faster and it will loosen up.
•  Ignore your doctor. You have to learn to translate for your doctor. “Stay off of it” means only run every OTHER day. Stay off of it when you aren’t running. “No running” means no races. Just training runs for you. “Wear this protective device” means purchase said protective device and wear it the first time you run after this appointment. Then you can leave it in the top drawer with that knee brace I prescribed last year. “See a specialist” means keep this business card in your wallet where you will see it every time you take out your credit card to pay for a race entry.
• Don’t stretch. You’ve never seen a cheetah stretch have you? And those things are super fast.
• Play favorites. Those old Brooks shoes have carried you 400 miles already, why quit now? They’re just getting comfortable! And that blood stain on the right one from when you stumbled and fell in mile 24 of last year’s Seattle Marathon is still there. You can’t throw away history.
•  Don’t rest. Rest is for the weak.
• Eat and drink whatever you want. You’re running dozens of miles a week! You’ve earned all that fat and alcohol. It’s people who don’t run who need to watch their diet. Not you. Order the French fries.
• Keep it to yourself. If you tell your friends about that nagging pain in your left foot, they will just tell you to take it easy and see your doctor. And we all know about what happens when you go see a doctor. (See #4)
• Forget your age. Running is the great equalizer. So what if you’re hovering around 40 years old, you can beat that 21 year old kid. Catch him. Do whatever it takes. Never admit that you are aging. Your body will hear this negative talk and want you to slow down. In fact, while you’re running like a 21 year old, why not go ahead and party like one too? (See #8)

Getting hurt really isn’t that challenging if you put your mind to it. With any luck, you’ll be limping to the starting line of the Seattle Marathon with me this November, hoping against hope that your surgically repaired body can make it through 26.2 miles of abuse without breaking down.

The Heat is Beating Me

As I write this we here in the Northwest have just had a rare stretch of hot summer weather, with temperatures up in the 90s and a UV index that challenged even the heartiest sunscreens. And after what seems like a full year of gray, damp, cool weather, no one was particular prepared to battle the heat. It's probably too late for this column, since this morning's forecast called for highs in the 60s and a chance of rain, but the sun will return. I promise. Usually just when the kids are back in school. Wait for it...

I'll just speak for myself here. I wasn't ready for the heat. I have gone through more sports drink* in the last few weeks than I ever drank in the past. Whether the stuff works or not, I have never craved it like I do of late. I cringe at what that Windex (err, I mean "window cleaner") blue-colored sports drink does to my insides.

My mostly bald dome is suffering too, and I realize one benefit all you hair guys have over me: the sweat just doesn't run right off your head into your eyes. But that's clearly the ONLY benefit to having a full head of hair.

Running in the heat is a challenge, and for as much as I like to be flip and make fun of things, heat stroke is a serious, serious issue. When you are running in the heat, even if it doesn't feel terribly hot, hydrate! Carry water even on short runs, and drink consistently. On a day to day basis, you should really only drink when you feel thirsty, but when you are pushing yourself and when the conditions are hot, you need to be more proactive about hydration than usual.

What else can you do to fight off the stresses of running in the heat? Here's a few ideas:

• Be shady. Pick a route that has a lot of trees or at least some spots where you can duck into some shade and cool down. Sections of the Burke Gilman and Centennial Trails are excellent for this.
• Wear a hat. A ballcap (especially a mesh one meant for runners) will shade your face and keep you a bit cooler. 
• Wear white. One of my favorite hot weather running shirts is actually a lightweight long sleeve technical shirt. White (well, ok, off-white now). It doesn't absorb heat and the long sleeves keep more of my pale northern European skin covered.
• Sprinklers! Time your runs for when the city turns on the sprinklers, or run in neighborhoods that - environment be damned - keep their lawns nicely manicured. You know the ones: they're where you don't live and are usually on top of the hill.
• Wait it out. Once the sun gets low in the evening, the running conditions improve drastically. Grab a light and head out after dinner.
• Take the day off. It's really swimming weather anyway. Pretend you're training for a tri.

Any brutal heat stroke stories? Tips for beating the heat? Let's hear 'em.



*Our lawyers have advised us to not use brand specific names when referring to potentially generic items. So where I normally would have typed "Gatorade" here, I had to default to the less poetic and slightly more clinical "sports drink." I will also refrain from "Body Glide" and will instead say "lubricant for the unmentionable area." Kleenex is Kleenex. Let's be honest.**


**The truth is we don't have lawyers here at Real Running and this is just a sort of gag that seemed funny when I started it but now that I am considering publishing this post seems significantly less so.

Ragnar Northwest Passage

It was 3:30 a.m. and I was running alone on the back roads of Whidbey Island, following a blinking red light clipped to the backside of a runner who was some undetermined distance ahead of me. A van came up behind me and slowed briefly.

“Need anything?”

Do I need anything? Yes. I need to crank out my last 6 miles of the race so I can crawl into the back of that van and go back to sleep. I need a beer. I need someone else to be out here…

“Nope. I’m good. Maybe some water in a few miles.”

And so my support van slowly drove away into the darkness. I tried to look at my watch in the bouncing light of my headlamp with little luck. Oh well. It made no difference now. In a 187 mile relay race with 11 other runners, my pace on the last few miles of my commitment wasn’t going to have much effect. I just had to finish. I set off to catch the runner ahead of me and wondered where I would see my team again with the water they promised me. I decided to pass the time by composing this article in my head.

Some of Our Van Graffiti in Artful Shadow

It started as a whim, as most adventures do. In scanning the calendar of events in the Northwest for 2010, I paused on the Ragnar Relay Northwest Passage. I’d heard of the Ragnar Relays, of course, but never considered running one.

I dashed off a quick email to some of my running friends. Should we try this?

Not long after I had a beer with an old college friend of mine who once passed me in a half marathon while pushing his two boys in a jogging stroller. A friend of a friend joined us. And so it happened that over a couple of adult beverages, we hatched the plan and committed to forming a relay team. The conversation went something like this:

“I know some runners.”

“Me too.”

Typical Ragnar Fare: A Vuvuzuala playing gorilla volunteer.

“We can easily get nine more people. Let’s do it.”

The crew of SuperVan after the race. 

Since it started in Utah in 2003, the Ragnar Relay series has grown to include events in New York, California, Arizona, and Florida, among other places. The premise is simple: A team of 12 runners separated into two vans. Each van is responsible for 6 consecutive legs of the race before handing off to the other half of the team. Repeat three times and when all is said and done most teams will have spent more than a day running over 180 miles with little sleep, questionable dietary choices, and some serious van funk. We have four kids who regularly road trip with us in our van, and I’ve never smelled anything like what our Ragnar team did to that poor thing.

The author wearing the mandatory pink driver's wig

I like to imagine that most Ragnar teams are made up of friends and acquaintances. Cobbled together from running clubs. Over the next months, ours would ebb and flow, lose a founding member to injury, and settle with me leading a team I barely knew. Heck, I didn’t even meet most of the members of our team until the day of the race. And something tells me this is pretty typical.

Robin and Katrina at the 2nd Exchange

What I don’t think is typical is for such a patchwork team to be so good! The teammates I brought along were, let’s say, somewhere in their forties or fifties. All strong runners and all veterans of all sorts of crazy sporting adventures. I knew they were game for the endurance. It turns out the others who somehow got hooked up with us (friends of friends of friends? Where’s Kevin Bacon in all of this?) were in their twenties and fast. I mean fast. Luckily, they were also all reliable and fun to be around. When putting together a Ragnar team of your own, which you should do, make personality the number one variable when selecting runners. The second variable should be: “has access to a van.” The third: “knows someone who lives along the course.” Running ability should be way down the list. You aren’t going to win.

Being surprised by the team’s overall pace was delightful at first, until I realized it meant that our van would get little rest. We had barely rolled out of the van for some sleep between our legs when a text message came in and woke me up.

“Scott’s on the last leg. You have about 30 minutes before he’s there.”

It took me 29 minutes to get up, get running clothes on, find my reflective vest and headlamp, and stumble to the exchange chute. It took me those same 29 minutes to calculate that our second van was averaging around 7 minutes per mile. Our team averaged a little over 8 minutes per mile for the whole race. I’ll let you figure out how our van was contributing to that average.

And at the 30 minute mark since receiving the text message, by friend Scott (the only person I knew in the second van) ran into the exchange and pulled my shorts down around my ankles. I was seriously too tired to care, and stumbled out of the chute and onto my last run of the race.

I have a fair collection of “Finisher” shirts in my drawers at home, but I seldom wear them. This one I will wear. My friend Robin reports that in the days after the relay, while doing a short run, he overheard someone talking about his shirt and saying something to the effect of :“He must be crazy to do that race!”

You don’t have to be crazy. But at 3:30 a.m. on the dark rural roads of Whidbey Island, with your support van nowhere to be found and 5 miles left to go before you can take the running shoes off for the last time, being a little crazy helps. Truly crazy is enduring all of it for 25 hours, looking at your teammates and committing to reloading and doing it again next year.

They have a Ragnar Relay in Vegas, you know. Anyone?

Visit the Ragnar Website at http://www.ragnarrelay.com/