I can't get duBois' quote about injury out of my head:
"The main danger of injury is a broken soul, and every man has his limit."
If this is indeed so, then, my soul is very broken, and my limit is close to here. It's not so much about exactly what's wrong with my foot and how many days it will take to heal, its about the creeping doubt that its just a matter of time before it happens again.
8 weeks. That's all the time I may ever have. Under ideal conditions, I have 8 weeks before my arch collapses again. If I don't let it heal completely, I have anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks... but its all the same in the end. For the past year or so, every injury I have is something that percolates from this chronic and persistent mystery pain that spans the inside of my arch up to the top of my foot where the ankle bends. Whether it happens because that pain itself become sharp and acute, or whether a compensation injury (R knee, or R hip) accumulates, the end comes either way, all the same. 8 weeks is not even a base training cycle. 8 weeks is not enough to make improvement.
I'm not one of those people who runs cuz they just love to run. To clarify, I do love to run, but *primarily* I run to be faster. I run because I'm a competitive, neurotic, deeply flawed, stubborn as hell, "anything you can do, I can do better" -sort of a person, and running is a mirror of who I am. This whole, on again, off again, half-way, in-between, always living on the verge of being broken, just barely hanging on to "not embarassing" much less to dream of doing better... is just twisting the knife in my heart. Every time I think I've determined the cause and found the solution to the arch problem, every time I think I've banished it for good this time, it rears its ugly head again.
To add to that, every year I become more and more deathly allergic to the world. If the 8th week of my training cycle happens to coincide with a day where my eyes haven't swollen shut, my throat hasn't constricted and my lungs filled with fluid, then maybe, just maybe I'll run a small PR. This isn't the existence that I want. While no one is obliged to believe in my potential without proof, all I want is a chance to show the world what I'm capable of.
Sunday 04/22: 95 minutes of ellipticizng at 130-160 bpm. Inauspicious beginnings to a week that will determine whether my season is over. This activity is really not very similar to running at all, don't feel like the right muscles are utilized. Disgruntled, but still hopeful to get back on the original plan tomorrow.
Monday 04/23: 3.1 miles, 10 laps and 30 minutes around the North Fields at 145 bpm. I cannot tell a lie... my foot just isn't really okay. Its not so bad anymore that I can't keep my form, but I feel the sore, bruised feeling with every step I take, along with some intermittent acute pain from the arch up to the top of the foot. It might hold up for some more days of jogging, but definitely not for a workout or a tempo, which means there is no hope of continuing the training plan for Oxy in May... as of today, Track 2007 is over. Core strengthening at the gym. Just going through the motions, I feel dead inside.
Tuesday 04/24: 90 minutes of ellipticizing at 130-160 bpm. Managed to procure the elliptical that has a incline adjustment feature--making the incline really low makes it more like running. Irritated that it only lets you program in 60 minutes at a time.
Definitely in full blown self-destruct mode today. Ate all sorts of junk food and leftover burritos basically continuously throughout the day until I felt sick to my stomach. Later regretted the counterproductive and irrational expression of angst, and dedicated myself to undoing the damage at the gym. In trying to analyze the source of the hopelessness, I think its because both the allergies and the mystery foot problem are things that I perceive as arbitrary (it becoming a prohibitive problem was kind of sudden onset and of unknown cause), out of my control (doctor says I'm allergic to basically everything that grows), completely debilitating to my ability to race well (can't train and can't breathe) and incurable with limited treatment options. I may never perform at a higher level ever again, and coming to grips with that is really crushing...
Wednesday 04/25: 60 minutes of ellipticizing at 155-165 bpm. HR kind of high, maybe 90 minutes of ellipticizing every day is too much. Team watching some sort of nutritional video in the gym. Tried to crank call Rosen and Kiesz, unsuccessful. Core strengthening, then Dodgers game with Peter, so fun :). Got to stand 20 feet away from Nomar Garciaparra!
Thursday 04/26: 65 minutes of ellipticizing at 140-160 bpm in the late PM. Time went by surprisingly fast, with phone calls, visitors and text messaging. Ankle didn't hurt as much as usual, but knees kind of funny feeling. I wish the foot receptacles on the elliptical could be placed slightly closer together. Feeling a strange mixture of cautiously optimistic, and fearful of allergy testing round 2 tomorrow... eeeeeeee....
Friday 04/27: 20.27 miles, 1:13 minutes riding around the Rose Bowl with Peter for a nice change of pace. Decided halfway through to stop checking the HR monitor--so fun to go fast on the slight downhills. Both knees felt very tweaked and weak in the first 10 miles or so, but then that cleared up. Felt cathartic to go fast.
Allergy prognosis sounds bleak--5 year of expensive shots with little improvement over the first year, and gradual regression after the course of treatment is my only option, apparently. The meds that are available for long term use aren't strong enough to quell my symptoms, so there's at least a year of suffering left...judging from how greatly a bad allergy day can reduce my cardiovascular capacity, that's a big ugh.
Saturday 04/28: off. Couldn't sleep because of weird drugs from yesterday, failed to wake up at 6 am to go riding... SCIAC Prelims at Whittier. Kiesz had a solid day. Ate too much watermelon.
30 minutes running, 310 minutes ellipticizing, 73 minutes biking. Barely hanging on to my sanity.
2 comments:
Maybe if running every day gives you 8 weeks, then running most days and bike/swim other days would give you more? You've always been a high volume, high intensity type runner. But we're not all Ryan -- it could be that it's simply too much for the bod to handle. And even if the foot is always delicate, it could be that more experimentation and patience could help you find a balance where training would be possible. What's NOT possible is training as much as you can, as hard as you can, all the time. But you don't need that too improve, do you?
I'm fragile too...EMOTIONALLLY
Hmmm, there has to be a fix. I can't remember if you've seen some kind of foot doctor about this. This sounds like something orthotics could help, though I know you hate them.
Post a Comment