I'm Injured, and it Sucks

Are injuries horrible? In a word: Yes



Too much volume? Too high of intensity? Not enough recovery?

These reasons, among others, are the causes of running/athletic injuries. Although injuries are part of any sport and at some point, we should expect to see a roadblock, yet they still come as a major surprise. Any hindrance, even minor ones, to regular training causes major devastation.

Over the past month, my right calf was nagging even coming off a more relaxed off period in training. Rather than making a big fuss about it, I continued with my group's prescribed training regimen to the point of failure. My negligence pushed a minor strain into a more major one.

My coaches encouraged me not to race my opening 5k of the season last weekend when they saw that I couldn't even run on my easy days. However, since the heat sheets had me in the first section with pro runners, I had a tough enough time smothering my excitement nevermind worrying about not taking the trip to the meet.

Come race time, I popped 4 ibuprofen to begin my warmup and still felt the echo of pain in my calf. Tossing caution to the wind, I gave my coach the thumbs-up which was the go-ahead to follow through with the race. Big mistake.

I was with the pack though 2500m but began falling off hard with 4 laps remaining. My coach was already pleading with me to drop out 6 laps in when we saw a limp I couldn't even feel due to the painkillers. Luckily, I conceded and ran off the track on the back straightaway, devasted at my lackluster performance.

Woody Kinkaid, one of my favorite runners, also dealt with many injuries throughout his most successful year in college.



The next day my coach and I discussed a plan of action to eradicate the strain, which called for copious amounts of cross-training. Sometimes getting side-lined for (hopefully) a little while is the price of admission in an attempt to get a new personal best. However, it's also a ticket to disappointment and worries with regard to the rest of the season. The shortsightedness associated with playing through injury sometimes isn't worth the end result that awaits us at the end of our anticipated recovery process. Sometimes, our injuries are worse than expected or we lose the fitness we fought so hard for all year.

Hopefully, anyone with an injury will trust in the process and have faith in the outcome that awaits us down the road.

Emily Infeld also saw many injuries in her build up to the trials.



 Tom Slattery