Long story short, the Greek myth of Sisyphus: Sisyphus was condemned to roll a large stone up to the top of a pointy hill, only to have the stone roll down again – for all eternity. Perhaps we runners won’t have to contend with our own problems for all eternity, but sometimes it seems like it.
All too often we are on a roll (no pun intended), then suffer a setback. It seems like we are always taking one step forward and two back – always starting from scratch. We get injured, sidetracked, busy, or whatever. The point is, sometimes life seems like a Greek myth.
So many runners suffer injuries and have to rest and recuperate, then start all over again from a lower level of fitness. The worst problems are those injuries whose cause can’t be pinpointed for whatever reason. Doctors don’t seem to be able to take the time to help because the cause is not obvious and the expense too high. The most common injuries are, not surprisingly, of the knee and foot variety.
Most of the attention in the medical care field is given to those who are older and so unfit and unhealthy that they are at great risk. Here in Canada, if you can still walk, nobody seems to care about your petty little knee twinge. The time and resources of physiotherapists, surgeons, and doctors are devoted to fixing the broken hips of elders or to the really serious injuries of the younger such as broken bones, or whatever.
This is understandable. Clearly our annoyance at having to run slower because of some relatively minor problem is not as important as helping our grandparents to stay ambulatory. What this means is that since our health care resources are not, and will probably never be, able to deal with minor issues that we runners suffer from, we have to take responsibility for our own health care.
That is not an easy task, given that I, for one, don’t have a lot of knowledge about the mechanics of it. I see a lot of runners posting about mysterious unresolved injuries which seriously limit their ability to perform the sport of their choice.
Given the understandable lack of support, what’s a runner to do? I suppose the first thing one has to do is reflect on a change of goals and attitudes. One has to accept the chronic injury while at the same time not giving up. Find ways to stay active, adapt, change, but never give up. Keep looking for a solution all the while.
So having said all this, what are some of your favorite ways to stay active during an injury? Clearly the activity has to be something you can still do with your injury without aggravating the situation. Swimming, weight training, biking, elliptical are all activities which we use for cross training and incidentally, for filling the gaps when we are unable to run. Maybe some of us have to give up running but take up race walking, for example.
I would like to know your thoughts on this.
on Jan 31st, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Very interesting,
although my “injury story” maybe isn’t totally related, thought you might be interested…
So, I was recently at the surgeon, and the first thing i said to him was…”I dont want surgery…dont be thinking of me as a patient”. Surgeons have a bad stigma, so twice now I have been suprised by how receptive, and what good “bed side manners” my two surgeons have had. Most recently, after telling my surgeon that I didnt want surgery, we talked about synaptic nerves, and creating new nuerological pathways to overide others that were already damaged. We do this all the time in our brains when we are attempting to change or adapt behaviour or faulty thought processes. According to my surgeon, this is actually much easier to do physically as there are much less possible pathyways down your spine than in your brain. Anyways, I will be spending the next little bit working on creating new nuerological pathways to override the damaged ones in my spine…I havn’t quite figured out how to do this, but have another appointment with him this week to learn more. the other interesting thing with this method is that you really shouldnt be on any medication to do this, as medication prevents, or changes the messages being sent, so prevents you from doing it yourself. Which is good, because besides from not wanting surgery, I really dont want to be on heavy drugs either. (Im stubborn). So, i have been taken off doing all the exercising that I love, am now going to be wearing a brace in attempt to create some more stability in my back, and do all these leg and arm exercises while focusing on pushing the right kind of messages down my spine. I figure i will do it for a set period of time, and see how it goes. Regardless…i was impressed by the first doctor that didn’t push drugs on me when i didnt want them.
I will let you know how it goes.