The big C-from my perspective

Comrades! can I run? cortisone?….words that have been plaguing my mind for the past 3 months.

Just so you all know, treating you lot is almost as stressful as your own preparation. You count your mileage, I count my injured soldiers, you lose weight, I lose hair, you buy new shoes, I stock up on tape and needles, you read books and sit on Google, I do proper research on your weird and wonderful injuries, you carbo load/ fat load/ vegetable load(whatever goes), I drink coffee!!

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my job and the challenge it presents especially at this time of year but BOY, you Comrades runners take the cake when it comes to complaining!!!

So after my experience over the past few months I have decided to let you all have a piece of mind 😉 even though I have never done the race ( I plan to in 2 years) and you may think I am talking out of experience (which I am). I just thought that I’d share with you what I have observed/researched/learnt/gathered from the past 2 years of treating you folk. I think you could all benefit from an “on-looker”, someone that sees it all from a different perspective.

Note: this is for the general “just want to finish”, NOT  gold NOR silver runner, not you racing snakes and know it all’s. So keep your 2 cents to a minimum!

Ok here goes!!!

1) I personally think some of you do WAY too much mileage for your poor bodies.  You all have “injury thresholds”, the point at which your body will not handle any more mileage and therefore break. Do any of you remember that 10% rule?

2) Do not run the same day after I or another professional have treated you!!! Your body has been man handled and is now trying to heal and repair so WHY run??? It’s like throwing money down the drain..well at least it’s my drain and paying my bills.

3) Doing a time trial or random speed session when you havn’t been doing speed work consistently is a big NO NO! “Speed work is fine for those chasing podium placements or age-group awards. But for mid-and back-of-the-packers? You might get five percent faster, but your injury risk could climb by 25 percent”.  Something to think about.

4) Listen to your body! Rest when you feel it’s necessary. REST RECOVER REBUILD. Your body needs time to heal, rebuild and adapt to mileage. Running on a tired body will only cause break down of muscle and bone and hence result in injury.

5) Pain. A signal from your brain telling you that something is going wrong somewhere.  Um, why do most of you run through it or ignore it? Slow down, STOP, seek medical advice. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist. Runners often present to me too late. What could have taken a few days to a week to heal, will now take 2-4 weeks. My fault?NO!

6) Strengthening and stretching. I know that about 90% of you are terrible at this. Correct muscle balance=symmetry=smooth fluid running=less chance of injury. Simple. Core, glutes, lower legs. ” Avoid static stretches (holding an elongated muscle in a fixed position for 30 seconds or longer) before running. Dynamic stretching is a safer, more effective pre-run warmup”. Research shows that “When you strengthen the hips: the abductors, adductors, and gluteus maximus, you increase your leg stability all the way down to the ankle”. Why do most of you skip this vital step in training? Lazy? Mileage crazy? Scared of building big muscles, substituting for rest…lame excuses! And I get them all the time!

7) Every training session is not a race. Understand quality vs quantity, smarter vs harder. Again, your body needs time to recover so you can’t go at it 100% all the time.

8) You can do other things to supplement running. Have you ever heard of cross-training? Yes? If you battling with an injury,you can swim or cycle or paddle or  you can go to gym!You can still burn calories and maintain fitness. So there’s no reason to get depressed!

9) Cortisone. I have my reservations about this. My rule of thumb is that if you need cortisone then you shouldn’t be running. Cortisone is also a banned substance in athletes unless you have a therapeutic use exemption (TUE). I recommend cortisone to those of my elderly patients who have severe arthritis. There is a time and a place and I know for a fact that it is a sensitive issue for you. But I will leave it up to you to do further reading. 

http://running.competitor.com/2013/10/injury-prevention/should-runners-get-cortisone-shots_87094

10) Comrades is not the be all and end all of life. If you are injured and cannot do it this year then there will always be next year and the year after and the year after that and so on! You runners almost run yourselves into injury comas trying so hard to reach that start line. Yes, I do understand the hard work and the training and the hours and the sacrifices and the break-ups and divorces that have all gone into this race. But seriously, is it worth doing permanent damage to your body? Uh, NO!!!! Remember there are worse things happening in this world then you not being able to do Comrades so suck it up and go support those who can run! 

Took some info off this site, click on it to read more. http://m.runnersworld.com/health/the-10-laws-of-injury-prevention?page=single