Anxiety

I am all too familiar with the anxiety that comes from something unexpected either de-railing a season or at least interrupting it. Every season, I have an athlete that unfortunately has a season-threatening or ending injury. I have been the victim of that myself, so relating to them is not too difficult for me. The challenge is helping the athlete to calm down and effectively deal with the problem.

I think the natural reaction is to panic and feel like you are the first person to ever get injured and there is no way anyone could possibly understand how you feel. This is especially true with teenagers in my opinion. As the coach, or just as the adult, the important message to send is that every injury heals with time. I always preach patience and persistence to an injured athlete. The two most common reasons someone gets a major injury are that they neglect a minor injury and are not patient enough to let it heal or they do not have the correct balance between their training intensity and volume. The later of those two reasons is almost invariably tied to missing practice for whatever reason, or rushing back into full training before their body can adapt.

So, what can I do to prevent an injury or recover from one as quickly as possible? The first answer is listen. Listen to your body, it is a remarkable machine that knows when something is not going right. If you ignore the warning signs of an injury, you risk catching it at a point when it has progressed too far to be prevented. Listen to your coaches, they know more than you about training and have a different perspective on your running. For example, if a coach tells you not to wear Rainbow sandals all day because they will damage your arch, they do so for good reason, not because they care about your personal fashion in the least. Speak up. If it hurts, tell someone. No one can feel what you feel, so it you don't say anything, chances are nobody will know you are in pain until you start limping...when you are limping, you have passed the point of prevention and you have achieved injury.

There are many things a runner can do to prevent injury, from stretching after runs and taking ice baths, to strengthening the lower leg and feet. The things that often get overlooked are diet, sleep, and recovery. If you eat nothing but sugar and fat (aka McDonald's) you will not be able to build the necessary tissue that your body requires to grow and strengthen. If you don't sleep enough, you enter into a cycle of diminishing returns. That means that you might feel OK for a day or two, but after a few days you will start to feel more and more fatigued. Eventually you will crash. Recovery is when your body actually accepts and adapts to your training load. If you run hard every day there is no time for the body to adapt. That would be like trying to learn Calculus by just picking up the book and reading it from cover to cover in a couple of hours. Sure you read it all, but how can you possibly remember any of it.

Injured or not, the point is to be a good communicator. Listen when someone gives you valuable advice and don't be afraid to let your coach know that it hurts. Listen to your body and respond appropriately. Injuries are not like the boogie man...you can hide under the covers all you want, but when the sun comes up the injury is still there. Train hard, train smart, and always be willing to learn.

Happy running