Shanghai Running Magazine Shanghai Running Q2 2014. Volume 2 | Page 34

I Learned About Running From That!

By Ray Heraty

Sometimes
I feel like
I’m trapped
in my own
running
version of
Groundhog
Day. Due to
the same silly decisions
I keep making the same mistakes
and suffering the same silly consequences. If it’s not downing
chocolate bars and chugging cans
of Coke in the midst of an ultra
marathon (see the last edition of
Shanghai Running Magazine for
the results of that little adventure);
it’s going on lengthy sightseeing
trips on foot the day before a
marathon. Lately though I made
a rather more costly mistake that
I’ve made in the past that cost
me an entire race and 4 weeks of
running.
I had planned to write a review
of the Tokyo Marathon for this
edition. After four years of entering the lottery my number finally
came up and I paid the entry fee. I
generally prefer trail races now but
I was excited about doing my first
major road marathon. After my
last race (the North Face Endurance Challenge in San Francisco) I
had planned to go right into training for Tokyo. The North Face
Race had gone very well so my
confidence was high, the fitness
was there and so I was going to
concentrate on speed work. With
about 12 weeks between the races
I felt like I had a decent chance
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of qualifying for the Boston Marathon at Tokyo and that was my
main training goal.
The North Face race was early
December. Right after that I had a
business trip, a sick kid, a Christmas family vacation and another
business trip where I got caught up
in the Polar Vortex. The end result
was that 4 weeks passed with only
170kms logged, about half of what
I had planned.
Back in Shanghai by early January,
my 12 weeks had shrunk to 7, but
I wasn’t too worried, the fitness
was still mostly there and I figured
I’d make up for my bad month
by increasing the intensity of my
workouts.
The problem is, I’m 41 now. I’m
in the best shape of my life but
the reality is
that my body
doesn’t recover quite as fast
as someone
in their 20s or
early 30s. I
knew that the
single biggest
cause of injuries among
runners,
especially
older runners,
is ramping up
their mileage
too much
too fast. I’d
made this
mistake once
in the past
and ended up
© Shanghai Running 2014

with a groin injury that resulted
in Grandma’s Marathon being the
first time I’d run in a month. That
race didn’t end well, though thankfully it did finally end.
Despite being fully aware of the
above risks, I launched into a
120km training week the second
week of January, with quite a few
high intensity workouts.This was a
mileage level I had last reached in
early November. I followed that up
with a week of 110km, running 13
out of 14 days straight. By midlate January I was ignoring a niggling little ache deep in my groin
somewhere. This was my body
raising the caution flag but do you
suppose I was smart enough to
listen?
Chinese New Year was a skiing trip
to Whistler. In addition to skiing
each day, I would go for a run

afterwards. I also
put in several high
intensity hill workouts in the snow
(running up a
mountain in shorts
as people ski down
it around you can
now be crossed off
my bucket list).
But near the end
of the week I could
no longer ignore
the problems I was
having. Sneezing and coughing
hurt like heck
and running had
become uncomfortable enough
for me to make an
appointment to see
a doctor.
With the aid of
google, I first self
diagnosed a hernia, but it turned
out that was not the case. Instead
I had injured my psoas muscle.
Personally I feel a slight stab of
pride when I hurt something I’ve
never heard of, but google once
again helped out and I came to
understand that this muscle is
more commonly known as the hip
flexor. Of course reading the web
you hear about all the people with
chronic problems and there are
plenty of people out there willing
to tell you about how hideous a
hip flexor problem can be.
My doctor suggested a week of rest
and gave me hope that Tokyo was
still a possibility. To be cautious
I took 10 days off and then the
week of the marathon I decided to
try a run to see if going to Tokyo

would be a viable option. I had set
out to do an easy 20km but after
5km I was in agony and hobbling.
I flagged a taxi and went home
terribly disappointed. Clearly my
first marathon major would have
to wait. Who knows when I’ll win
the entry lottery for Tokyo again as
it is 11-1 oversubscribed.
The latest on my injury is that I’m
back running, albeit easily and
slowly. The pain is not gone, but it
is manageable. I’m also under the
care of a physical therapist here in
Shanghai who has prescribed exercises and massage. (Honey, I’m off
to get my groin massaged – doctor’s orders!) I’m ramping up the
mileage VERY slowly this time.
My goal is to be able to complete
my first 100 mile race in June (the
Kettle Moraine 100) and along the
way finish the Ultra Trail Mt Fuji
© Shanghai Running 2014

STP (essentially half the
UTMF course) which is
in late April.
So why did I get injured
when I knew there was
a high probability that
that would be precisely
the expected outcome
when I launched into
high mileage weeks
after weeks of low mileage. I dunno – maybe
in my head I’m still 25
years old, maybe I just
hoped I’d get away it,
maybe it was a little bit
of magical thinking.
But you know what, it’s
OK. I think without
some magical thinking
I’d never have lined up
for my first marathon.
And I know there was
a lot of magical thinking when I lined up for
my first 100km having never run
more than half that distance prior.
But in both those cases the result
was magical and lead to a lifelong
addiction to this thing we call
running and more recently a desire
to run distances that most people
don’t even want to think about
driving.
So even if it does occasionally
cause problems, maybe a little
magical thinking is just what every
runner needs.

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