Playing Hurt

In order to make the point I want to make this month, I have to first confess that I do sit around most Sundays with various friends and brothers in law watching American Professional Tackle Football*. Make of that what you will. On a recent Sunday the various dudes on couches in my living room watched as a kick returner got hit by about five men at the same time, and we cringed as we watched the replay of the runner’s ankle rolling over so far his shin bone was on the ground. I could almost hear the soft tissue tearing right through the screen.

The runner went down in a heap, and after they peeled the other team off of him, the trainers attended to him and carried him off the field. His team started their offensive drive without him. Five plays later, he was lining up as a wide receiver.

That same injury – minus the 250 pound linebackers beating me to a pulp – kept me out of running shoes for 2 weeks. A sore foot will sideline me for a week. Heck, even a bad cough can sideline my running plans. As I watched this player hobble back on the field with twenty dollars worth of athletic tape on his ankle, I started thinking about playing hurt and the decisions we have to make as recreational runners when it comes to pushing through pain or stepping back and letting our bodies heal.

As I get older I find myself listening to every little twinge or ache as I run. A little pain that I would have ignored ten years ago is suddenly cause for alarm, and it isn’t because I can’t take the pain. Like most distance runners, I am pretty good at gritting my teeth and working through pain. For me it is increasingly about longevity. I don’t need to meet my daily or weekly goal nearly as much as I want to be healthy for the whole year. And the year after that. So when I rolled my ankle on a tree root a few months back, I probably could have finished my planned ten miles, gone home, and suffered the consequences. Instead, I tightened my shoe, turned around, and walked the two miles back to my car.

How do we know when to stop? When to push? Which injuries have potential long term ramifications and which are just aches and pains? When do you see a doctor and when do you just surf the running message boards for similar symptoms? How many rhetorical questions can I write in one paragraph?

For the football player the lines are clearer and the decisions simpler. In fact, in most cases it isn’t his decision to make. The trainers tell him if he can play, and the coach tells him if he will play. Plus, chances are he has a few million bucks on the line.

Despite the differences, there is a model in the way football players deal with injury, however. For them it is all about game day. An injured player is held out of practice, given special training programs, and basically allowed to heal rather than practicing with his team. It’s all about game day.

This is all reinforcement for my theory that you should always have a race on the calendar. You should always be training for something, and that event should be the focus of your running energy. If you have a half marathon in two weeks and your knee hurts a little, back off a bit. Maybe take an extra rest day. Save yourself for the race. If you push in training and get hurt, the race is ruined. If you push in the race and get hurt, you just need a little longer to recover from the race than you otherwise would have.

It is also reinforcement for my theory that we all just need to be running more often than we do. The more time we spend on our feet, the more we learn which twinges and aches are serious and which are not.

*I should also confess that I purposely schedule my rest days on Sundays so I can spend the entire day watching football and obsessing over my fantasy football team.