Running hasn’t been going very well for me this year. I made a decision to make some changes to my biomechanics over the winter that seem to have worked very well. Unfortunately I thought I could pick up the volume of running that I’d done in previous years and ripped my calves to bits. A little lack of knowledge and a bit too much enthusiasm can cause great harm.
This isn’t a terrible injury, and it hasn’t screwed up my season, and as a triathlon novice spending less time running has meant I’ve spent more time on the bike and in the water which has helped me blend the three disciplines to some success, and has given me a significant overall improvement in performance over last season. But I do like to run. And I get grumpy when I don’t run. The kids even tell me how cheery I am when I come back through the front door in the morning, grimy and sweaty with a big grin on my face.
Running is a great time to think. When I was studying for my anatomy degree I did it because of an unadulterated fascination. That’s still in me today, as I keep learning and teaching. Towards the end of that degree much of that was probably lost in the same way as I see it getting lost in medical students today. With exams looming that determine your future you forget about learning and loving the subject, and you work harder and harder to get facts inside your head that you can recite or redraw. The subject doesn’t matter any more, only the exam performance matters. Anybody who has crammed probably also realised later that wasn’t the greatest way to “learn”. This was a big reason for me to study for a PhD. I could continue to learn without continual assessment.
The Dublin Marathon a couple of years ago almost had a similar affect on me. It’s not that I stopped loving the running, but as an endurance athlete that had experienced different sports I found it very difficult to imagine doing the same thing again: running and only running to hit the targets and expectations of a single, major assessment (the race) at the end of each season. I wanted to ride my bike. I wanted to swim. So I moved to triathlon (and had already been planning to).
Running somewhat sporadically this year, with little mileage and infrequent speedwork, I miss running every day. (I know, there’s no pleasing some people)! I asked myself, if I had the choice between running without injury every day but never racing, or running only occasionally and never finding my limits, which would I choose? Easy – I’d choosing the first option. Running. Running for the sake of running. It’s not racing or results that drive me then, although they’re nice to get, it’s the drive to see how far and how fast I can go. To set high targets and to see if I can reach them. Physiology over trophies.
I guess that’s probably the healthy option too.
