Happiness to run or lessons from a strange running injury

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

I hope that my story of trauma will warn you against my mistakes and the mistakes of those who calm down in moments of trauma and do not broadcast positive about you on social networks. It ceases to entertain you with its successes and simply drags silently around trashy clinics, trashy doctors, dreaming of happiness lost by stupidity. Happiness to run.

Yesterday on the track in the Samui fitness club, I ran 8 km with a pace of 5:00. Tears rolled into my eyes, and a lump blocked my throat. I was happy with what I saw and that there was no pain. It must be strange to hear this from a person who learned to run 21 km in less than 1 hour 45 minutes and even did half of IRONMAN … But for half a year I could not run, almost completely. Below is a story that I did not want to tell, but the sensations that overtook me yesterday changed my mind. At the end you will find a few lessons that I have learned over these more than half a year.

10 days before the start at IRONMAN 70.3 ITALY, I did something that no reasonable athlete would do. I decided to test myself and ran at some inconceivable pace to the hall of the Motherland Mother in Kiev. Something went wrong and began to pull on the ankle of the right leg on the inside. Then I ran another 10 kilometers and at home I ended up with a swollen leg. The next day I could not walk. I had 9 days to go to IM, and I had to go on a long journey in a week. The panic began. I don’t remember how many people were on the Internet and in real life who volunteered to help me. The main diagnosis was periosteal inflammation. Seasoned athletes and champions in running and triathlon advised to use lotions from a solution of Dimexide and saline solution - one part of Dimexide and 9 parts of saline. So I went a week before the start. The lotions had to be done often, and therefore I had to carry cotton wool, an elastic bandage and a syringe with which to apply all this.

You should have seen the eyes of Italians on the Rome - Pescara train (there was a competition here), when they saw a passenger with a syringe and cotton wool, chewing something on his leg:)

Funny to tears. To bitter tears. In general, I had the whole first-aid kit like this ↓

It is worth saying that walking was very painful all these days. Especially, everything was aggravated by the fact that it was necessary to lug a backpack and a box with a bicycle, sneakers, uniforms, wetsuit and other utensils. To drag, then to swim 1, 8 km, ride a bicycle 90 km and, most importantly, run 21 km, it is not clear where, in what weather and for the sake of what to endure all this.

Around everyone was giving advice - ice and hot water, more contrast, smear with ointment, do not smear with ointment, tighten it tight, do not tighten in any way, do massage, do not massage in any way, use tapes! It was maddening.

The day before the start, I, a slightly lame duck, who seemed to be on the mend, met the Shchedrovs brothers, who forced me to pull on compression socks literally by force!

Looking ahead, I will say that it seems that this is what allowed me to finish in principle. These are knee-length socks that tighten everything tightly and it somehow kills the pain. This is how they look - gorgeous:

I will not describe the whole race, it is described here, but the run was torture, and therefore lasted more than 2 hours! Somehow it turns out that if you are trying not to load a sore leg, then the whole body is tight, each part of the opposite leg - the knee and tendons under the knee hurt, then the thigh and foot. I have never seen those who pass such a race cry, but I could be the first. Only the delight of WHERE I was and WHAT I did helped. Inside there is a cry of pain, on my face there is sincere joy.

After the finish, there was a real horror, which is difficult to talk about. I had to think hard about where to go, how to go and whether it was worth doing. No, I walked the remaining two days in Rome, but only its beauty helped to distract myself somehow from the sore.

Then there was Kiev and the doctors. If you think that with access to commercial medicine you will achieve a solution to your problem, then you are not. This is where I ended up for the procedures in the direction of one of the famous clinics in Ukraine. This is an electrophoresis procedure - 40-50 minutes a day for 10 days and … no result.

Then - another doctor on the advice of an athlete friend. An x-ray from a scary trauma clinic (in which I thought I was caught in an eclipse of Silent Hill with entourage and chipped zombies).

And here it is shown for inexpensive

X-rays are taken here

X-rays showed that no periosteum was inflamed. The doctor's diagnosis was - something neurological and it radiates to the nerves in the leg. The bone in the photo is intact, there are no injuries, the joints are OK, the periosteum is normal. It was getting more interesting … Just in case, they prescribed some very evil ointment Finalgon. It's still a pleasure to use it. It bakes hellishly, irritates the skin, is not washed off with water, but only with olive or other oil. If a micropart of it gets into your eye or nose, you will suffer. She didn't help either.

Then I was advised to "horse ointment". It is very cool and brought a temporary improvement, but it did not solve the problem. This ointment, by the way, is smeared on horses after races to calm their strained legs. Sold by half a liter: D

All that remained was to swim and ride a bike. Funnily enough, what hurts while running doesn't get in the way on the bike or in the water.

On June 1, 2013, I got a sore, on January 6, 2014, I realized that there was almost no trace left of it. I again found the happiness of running, which is not so appreciated by all of us at the first stage of our passion for running. Until now, I can't say what I would recommend to friends in misfortune - everything is too complicated to give as advice.

In general, as I understand it, sports injury, and even in our area, is something that you are left alone with and it is waiting for only one thing, when you calm down, turn off the hum around, go out of the Internet and just start listening to yourself. Today my injury has become my friend. No, the pain was gone, but the anxiety and constant reminder remained. It's not pain, no. It's hard to explain … This is a type of additional sensor on the leg that reminds of itself all the time. He is with you and says: "Enough for today", "Be careful on the descent, don't forget about me", "Do you still want to roll around for half a year ?!"

My lessons learned (take heed)

1. Appreciate your kilometers … Do you run five and start running six? This is a super achievement. Did you run five and jumped at eight on endorphin doping? You are not a hero, you are an idiot. Appreciate your five and develop here. Remember that you will not have years and years if you continue this way.
2. Technique - it is most important. Today my run is not a race with myself, it is a deliberate quest in which I remember every step, every decision about a slide, a descent. I do remember the hundreds of times my foot dropped and kicked off the ground. This is the most interesting thing about running, not the sideways, time and progress. Stop storming yourself - it will end badly, storm the technique. In my case, Pozny Run showed itself best of all. As it seems to me today, the problem was that, even when not running on the heel, I knocked too hard on the ground and the tissues on the side of the leg were inflamed from these blows.
3. Stop broadcasting - this is where your motivation comes from and what pushes you into stupidity. When you unexpectedly do a half marathon on a mental lift at one of the workouts, then hurry to post and get your likes, comments like "Cool oooo!", "Wow, how is this possible ?!" If you need motivation from the delight of those who cannot do anything by themselves, then you need to do something else. Close your account from strangers and practice calmly. Use the super cool Training Peaks, Garmin's service, or adidas micoach workouts. Train calmly and deliberately, and post only true achievements - marathons, half marathons, triathlon starts for which you PREPARE! Understand that you need to stop ignoring the process and appreciate the result. Your motivation is not the constant itch of lazy people on Facebook and Twitter, but real deeds - city competitions or commercial starts.
4. You are not unique - admit it. You are not a nugget that you have dug up late - no. The nuggets are already wearing medals or have been coming for a decade (s). You will not be able to catch up with those who are engaged in cyclic sports from 8 to 22 years old. You are most likely a wreck and no miracle will happen to you. There is no need to sublimate the shortcomings of personal life and shitty work with achievements in sports. You are not a professional and you shouldn't go to bed in seconds, we need you for something else. Your tendons are degraded, your joints are not the first freshness, your muscles are so-so. You will not be able to do everything quickly and not suffer from this, you will be sick and suffer and it will only be worse from the fever that you yourself have arranged. And most importantly, no one on your Facebook and Twitter will help you with your achilles, knees, feet, lower back and back problems. Trying to take a run or a triathlon in a swoop is like a good booze. Everyone has fun and everyone is so cute, but in the morning you are alone with your aching head.

Such a story. I hope that she will warn you against my mistakes and the mistakes of those who calm down in moments of trauma and do not broadcast positive about you on social networks. It ceases to entertain you with its successes and simply drags silently around trashy clinics, trashy doctors, dreaming of happiness lost by stupidity. Happiness to run.