Patience

Back in January Mark Wooley wrote an epilogue to being injured, sharing with everybody a little nugget of advice which I should have heeded a long time ago. Quite simply he said if you dedicate 100% of your energy into injury recovery, listen to the healthcare experts and wait until you are completely healed you will get better much more quickly and completely. Halfway measures just prolong the injury.

As I've mentioned numerous times, I have forced myself through month after month of painful training through debilitating injuries this year. The main reason I did so was because I had committed so much time and money to certain big 2011 ultras in late 2010 - letting them all pass me by was not an option I wanted to take financially and I didn't want to find myself waiting another 5 years to get a spot at Western States. Did this end up causing longer term problems? Yes. Was it worth all the pain in the lead up to and during the race, just to finish? Yes. Most people would say it was a pretty stupid decision to race three 100 milers on chronic fractures. I would do the same over again in a heartbeat. The races were too important to me and I knew upfront I was in for a long lay off period if I could get through them. To me that was worth it. It has if anything only served to make me a stronger person psychologically. Certainly the next time I run a 100 miler fit and healthy I will be thinking, hang on you got through a harder race than this on zero running for 2 months so guess what, you'll be ok.

Subsequent to the summer I had time to let my bones heal a little and my body and mind to get some respite from the constant nagging stress of being undertrained for upcoming races. Then I crashed my bike, ran 50 miles on a bad knee the following day and set myself out for another 4 weeks. Was this a stupid decision? Absolutely, I should have waited to find out what the knee damage was. I tried coming back to training/ racing prematurely so many times this year and it's taken until now to learn properly from that.

This past 2 weeks I did absolutely nothing. I have tried to shake out the knee, shin, hamstring and any other minor niggles and wait with patience until I was 100% ready to try again. Almost a month of no running means lost fitness which eats away at you each day.

Three things I've learned this year. If you don't let your injury heal 100%, you will just exacerbate the problem - maybe not straight away but certainly in the short to medium term and you will be out for much much longer than if you wait that extra week to make sure you are 100% ready. Two, you will get your previous fitness back much quicker than you think. Knowing what it is like to be in good shape is 80% of the battle. Three, don't take for granted your being able to step out of the door and on to the road or trails for that precious few miles. There are people out there who cannot train and some who will never run again. If you are sick or have a minor niggle, don't complain about it just wait and make sure you are ok before you take it up again. Treat it as an enforced rest period. It will help re-ignite your hunger for running and cost you almost nothing in overall fitness.

Tonight's 5 mile pain free run was maybe the sweetest 5 miles I have ever logged. 5 miles!!! Last year I would have considered that borderline pointless. Baby steps right now....

What a performance from Hal Koerner this past weekend at Javelina. He executes everything he does with a level of class you rarely see nowadays. Forget the results, you get the impression he would be the same guy if he were a mid to back of the packer. Inspirational stuff. His report is here. Take a chance to look at 102 mile by mile split times....