Friday, February 8, 2008

Applying the Denial

Well, I am still running on my leg with the painful shin. I just apply some Denial and I am good to go. Denial is a great product, you can get it right off the shelf and all it really costs is some breakthrough pain in the morning. So far the costs have been manageable, although it does seem to get a little bit more expensive every day. But as long as it is just a little bit at a time I think I can manage it. I attribute these rising cost to inflation (aka inflammation), but just so long as the price rises slowly I think I will be able to keep up with it.

I am really not sure what I will do if the cost suddenly spikes and I find myself no longer able to afford it. My whole identity as an athlete right now is wrapped up in doing this 100 mile race. I want it very bad and I am willing to put up with a lot. I just don’t see myself doing anything else right now. Well, check that, I can, but I don’t want to do them. Maybe I can spend some time on the Elliptical Trainer at the gym as an alternative to running once a week. At least the motion is similar to running.

Last night when I came home from work, I was feeling very tired, slightly nauseous and the Denial was wearing off a bit so my shin was feeling a bit painful. I really wanted to just go to sleep and call it a day, but doing that is not how a 100 mile runner is made. So I lathered on some more Denial, took 3 ibuprofen (works great in combination with Denial) and went out for an 8 mile run. I have to say that once I got going, I started to feel much better. I was very pleasantly surprised. Sometimes when I am tired I get a mile from home, run out of juice and wind up walking. Not last night though. My legs carried me very well and I had a spiffy 8.1 mile run in 1:11:16; only 6 seconds slower than my run on Tuesday night. Not bad considering how I felt when I started and the fact that I once again overdressed.

So to answer my Twitter friend Darkgracie’s question “you are crazy! your shin will just hurt worse... is living in denial working for you? *wink*”, - yes, denial is working for me so far. People live in denial all of the time and survive. Denial can take you a long way. I just need my denial to take me 100 miles.

Posted by Rebel at 5:17 PM  

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5 comments:

scarinzic said...

hey man - when is the VT100? You might want to get your shin checked out sooner rather than later b/c if we're talking - god forbid - stress fracture here, then it will indeed only get worse. Then again, you know the pain you're feeling better than I do, so I could be way off.

Worse case scenario, you take a little bit of time off from running, keep swimming (pool running maybe?) and you're back at it before too long with healthy, pain-free legs.

Just a thought! Would hate for some chronic pain to keep you from performing at your best, you know?

February 8, 2008 at 5:42 PM
Anonymous said...

The way I see it there are two basic coping strategies: heavy drinking and denial. Considering that you're going to run 100 miles drinking heavily isn't a viable strategy.

February 8, 2008 at 5:50 PM
Anonymous said...

If it is an inflammation, you need to take a rest for at least a week or two... I know by first hand experience. The elliptical trainer sounds like a good alternative. But all this you already knew.. don't really need me to state the obvious.

Good luck! :)
Roger R

February 8, 2008 at 7:34 PM
Todd Colby said...

There's always Lake Placid! Really.

On the other hand, take it easy on those shins, and perhaps have a talk with an exercise physiologist that can actually address your horrid running form. You tend to shuffle on the balls of your feet and that is a recipe for all kinds of pain, injury, and suffering. I've told you a million times: Mid-foot strike, gentle roll, high turnover--it's the best way to run the long stuff, avoid injury, and not lose any speed.

February 9, 2008 at 1:03 PM
Todd Colby said...

Here's something worth reading from Gordo Byrn's site gordoworld.com. You should read him, he's the best and wisest writer about endurance activities there is.

++


The closer you get to your ultimate physical potential; the greater the “payback” that will be required when you exceed your body’s ability to recover. As you approach your maximal race fitness, there is a divergence between athletic success and physical well-being/longevity.


Fitness is a very powerful drug that programs deep athletic memories. Almost by definition, athletes with the ability to take themselves beyond reasonable levels of training/fatigue are at risk for overtraining. In fact, some successful elites may even tell you that overtraining is essential for success.


I’m not sure those words are what the champions mean. Here’s my shot at it:

Completing a lot of work is a requirement for success in any field.
The closer we get to our maximum capacity to “do” work, the closer we are to completely ruining our ability to “absorb” work.
As a species, we are poor at seeing much further than the current moment – especially with a stack of endorphins coursing through our veins.
Take all of these together – mistakes are to be expected and overtraining is a “normal” hazard for the endurance athlete.

Scott had more success than pretty much anyone in the history of our sport – he’d make anyone’s top ten list for race victories.


His payback period was five to ten years. I am nearing my third anniversary of hitting the wall and I wonder…

Have I paid back enough?
Have I learned my lessons?
When will the Old G re-appear?

+++


Five years until he got back to triathlon training and ten years until he was really rippin’ it up again.


Years… not seasons… not months… not weeks.


This struck me because I had five months off in 2005 (April to August) then eased back into hour-per-day training for a few months before starting back with structured triathlon training in December 2005. Across 2006, it was touch-and-go with quite a bit of residual fear in my body. If you have ever had an injury then you’ve likely experienced the fear of re-injury. Overtraining is a spiritual and immune system “injury” with a similar psychology.


All across 2006, I was looking for a sign that I was “healed” and that soon I would be able to get back to the training that I remembered.


An important note – the training that we remember is our lifetime best performances blurred by the passage of time. A long term training log is a wonderful tool for a reality check. I use it often with my most headstrong athletes (and myself). Lifetime bests have the deepest chemical signatures – check the facts before making assumptions about how you “used to be”.


In 2006, my training was erratic and I used the cushion of working in my business to hide from reality. Perhaps I was past it, perhaps I was still tired, perhaps I was cured of my desire for mega-miles.


Long time readers will know what happened next, I went to Mark and Brant for some help putting myself back together – both physically and spiritually. I re-established my connection with nature and saw some of the patterns that caused my fatigue.


I thought I was healed – more accurately… I hoped that I was healed. On many levels I was healed. Without a doubt, Mark’s training protocol gave me my health back – I highly recommend his method if you are seeking to break a cycle of fatigue, injury or overtraining. The combo of Mark and Brant is an amazing duo – I have no idea how, or why, it works but (for me) it was really something special.


…but the fear remained, along with an emotional component of fatigue. Each time I would become fatigued, I was waiting to fall into exhaustion.


In life, we most often get what we expect and this probably held me back. My fears also prevented me from following my heart with the sort of training approach that I enjoy and have found effective. There were a lot of self-rationalizations that went on in my head but, in reality, I was scared.


If you read my Ironman Canada 2007 race report then you know what happened next… total public meltdown and my worst race performance relative to fitness in five years.


That was followed by four months of depression that culminated in three weeks in the tropical paradise of Noosa where I struggled to get out of bed. A few things got me moving:


Commitments – last October I made a commitment to Monica that I would do at least one hour of activity every single day for the rest of our life together (walking counts!). As an athlete, or an athletic spouse, you either understand why that is important, or you don’t. As my love for, and understanding of, Monica grows; I see how lucky I am to have a life partner that understands me better than I understand myself.


Personal Responsibility – nobody “made” my situation, it was the direct result of choices I made. I did my best to take small concrete actions that moved me back towards the life I want to live. Getting out of bed each morning is the most important thing that I do. If I can get that done then 89 out of 90 days, everything flows from there.


Acceptance – with most of my recovery challenges, my healing progresses most rapidly once I accept that I might never get better. By ceasing to resist my fatigue, my mood, my challenges – I start to improve. I don’t think that we ever “overcome” or “conquer” our fundamental challenges in life – we learn the patterns, habits and strategies that are effective to keep us moving forward.


All of these thoughts occurred to me because last week, training felt different to me. Epic made me tired but it didn’t make me scared. I commented about my improved form to Molina and he said that he didn’t notice any difference (or anything impressive). On reflection, that made sense because the change was on the inside.


It was a lot of fun to have my health back and enjoy training with the guys. I need to remember that as the memories of Epic return to me while training.


+++


I suppose my point is one that Mark shared with me. The factors that lead to breakdown accumulate across many years (often in parallel to increased athletic performance). Any improvement, from rock bottom, will feel like healing.


The greater your success leading up to the breakdown, the longer your recovery will likely take. Be patient in the early stages – my impatience through the early years of overtraining is what led to hitting the wall.


The stages, for me, were:


Breakdown;
Total rest;
Resumption of light activity – this is where health and biomechanical issues can be addressed;
Resumption of unstructured triathlon training – address patterns/habits that lead to breakdown;
Resumption of triathlon training balanced with equal periods of scheduled recovery (this step is very rarely done – it was the key to a rapid return to fitness in 2006); and
Resumption of elite triathlon training that is balanced with extended transition and early season training.

Adult athletes should remember that stress and fatigue that builds up outside of sport can often manifest itself as athletic overtraining.


I’ll keep you posted.


g

February 10, 2008 at 7:46 AM

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