Body of Evidence: 11 Things I Learned About Training While I Was Injured

Body of Evidence:  11 Things I Learned About Training While I Was Injured.
A coach’s confession

When I hurt my back in August 2010 (my most recent back injury), my husband told me that I had to write about it.  Mostly, because it seemed like the finale of a cruel episode of “E.R.” starring my body.

I’d been plagued with various nagging injuries that summer.  First, I had a terrible case of carpal tunnel in both wrists, resulting in painful numbness. Second, I found myself battling plantar fasciitis in my left foot.  Lastly, I fell off my bike during an Olympic distance triathlon where I was going nearly 20 miles an hour.  I got up, finished the last half-mile of the ride and ran the 10k.  Only once I’d finished did I discover how badly the entire left side of my body was swollen and torn up.

Two weeks later, my back “went out.”  I was unable to move due to major nerve pain going down the right leg all the way to my right foot.  It turns out that I had herniated two disks (L5/S1) that were pressing on my sciatic nerve.

Some of you may be thinking I’m a little (or a lot) nuts.  Maybe you would have thrown in the towel somewhere between carpal tunnel and fasciitis.  But, I also know that many of you reading this would have kept going, just like I did.  Kept going, until you couldn’t go any more.

I now realize that I was not going to stop until, eventually, I had no choice.  Despite the many signs telling me to slow down, I never listened. Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t take a break after my bike crash at the Olympic triathlon.  Instead, I was counting the days until I could swim again.  I had to let my forearm’s deep “road rash” heal to avoid infection from a pool or lake.  For some reason, I couldn’t shift my brain from “drive” to “park.”  In the end, the herniated disc was the only thing that got me to downshift.  For that I am truly grateful.

Since last August, I have sought out many medical opinions, both surgical and non-surgical.  I have been to orthopedic back surgeons, physical therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, personal trainers, massage therapists and even two psychotherapists.  In the end, I decided to let my body rest and see what happened.

Having opted for the non-surgical route, I have tried to be a patient patient, listening to my body as it slowly heals.  It was frustrating to miss three late season races, but by listening to my body, I was able to recover and learn more about what had happened.   Ten months after the herniated disks literally stopped me in my tracks, I did a sprint distance triathlon, my only goal was to finish pain free.  I ended up winning my age group.

For the past 10 years, I’ve practiced what I’ve preached and varied my workout routines and cross-trained.  However, this recovery taught me even more about how I can extend my years of training and the best practices for staying injury free.  Granted, there are no guarantees, but I’ve jotted down some guidelines that I think can benefit any athlete.

I hope that you can learn from my experience, and avoid the mistakes I made by placing a firm hand on the gearshift in your life.

1. Warm up
We can all agree that warming up is a good idea.  Yet, so few of us do it consistently because we just want to get the workout in.  Well, that just doesn’t cut it.  Whether you are swimming, biking, running or doing core conditioning at the gym, take the time to do something at an easy pace to literally warm up.  Don’t just launch into a 5-mile run.

2. Vary Your Routine
For the past two years, I have been religious about not running two days in a row.  Even if I’m on vacation and there is no other activity I can do, I will take a long walk instead of running back-to-back days.  I will even take the stairs in a hotel instead of the elevator. I also interject some interval running by varying my speed.

3. Cool Down
I try to end my run with a 5-15 minute walk.  This gives me time to cool down and let my muscles relax.  I will try to stretch when I get home, but if I don’t have time, at least I’ve walked before jumping in my car or sitting at my desk.

4. Stretch
I have a 10-15 minute stretch routine that allows me to cool down after a hard workout.  If I know that my time is tight, I can shorten the stretching, but I don’t skip it.  In the past I wouldn’t have stretched at all, now it’s the final part of the workout.

5. Do Yoga
Many people who know me know that I don’t really like yoga, even after trying many classes over 13 years.  However, I do know that yoga is a good balance to my workouts.  For me, yoga isn’t another tough workout on my body, it’s the opportunity for me to recharge and recover.  I’m a big fan of Yin Yoga.  I call it “forced stretching.”  Check out Sage Rountree’s Yoga for Athletes.  You will definitely get some good tips from her books and podcasts.

6. Breathe
Seems odd to have to remind yourself to breathe, right?  Well, I find that it helps get the oxygen moving around to all parts of my body.  I’m not just talking when I’m training, but even as I type this article. I take many deep breaths while driving, watching television, reading or right before going to sleep.

7. Rest and Recover
The most underrated part of training is rest and recovery days.  Usually you get a rest day if you’re travelling somewhere or you have meetings back to back and a workout is out of the question.  Are you really resting?  Try to find one day a week where you schedule a rest day.  It’s okay if it’s also a workday, just make sure you’re not changing time zones. A good rest day will go a long way in a successful training program.

8. Less Is More
There are days when I just need a short swim.  That’s ok.  Every workout doesn’t have to be the Ironman.   Mix it up.

9. Pain May Be A Distraction
One of the more interesting ideas I discovered during my recovery is based on the concepts of Dr. John Sarno.  I can’t do them justice here, but his basic premise is that some pain (e.g. back and neck pain) is more related to your emotional state than a physical trauma.  Dr. Sarno claims that in certain cases pain is your brain attempting to distract you from something going on in your life.  The pain is real, but not due to an injury.  This is a larger topic, but one worth researching if other approaches haven’t helped.

10. Smile
I truly love to train and sometimes, when the workout is hard, I forget that.  If I start to smile, I relax and realize that I’m having fun, despite how challenging the workout may be.  Recently, I was doing a workout on the treadmill and I started to smile and I ran faster and with more ease.

11. Listen
I believe that I have been given a second chance to train and race; pain-free.  For over 20 years, I have been training for and racing marathons, half marathons and triathlons.  During that span, I have had a few injuries that have sidelined me, but this recent hiatus was by far the longest.  While it was frustrating, it did give me much-needed time to learn more about my body and also examine my exercise philosophy.  In the end, it was a wake-up call that was sorely needed.  More importantly, it was a wake-up call that I was finally able to hear.

An Aha Moment

For the past six months I have had the opportunity to switch places with the hundreds of women that have trained with Team Training New England over the past five years and now I REALLY get it!  I have been lucky enough that my fitness level has enabled me to compete in both Sprint and Olympic distance triathlons without a tried and true training plan.  My life as a mother of a three teenagers, a daughter of aging parents, my involvment in my family business as well as my coaching business didn’t leave me much time to train systematically.

When I completed my first triathlon in 2004, I was overjoyed. I felt that I finally found my calling as an athlete.  As I thought about the challenge of a longer distance triathlon, I knew that I couldn’t rely on my current training regime to get me to the finish line.   Like many of our athletes, I was experiencing first hand, the challenge and exhilaration of setting my sights on an event that I had previously thought of as unattainable.  My challenge was a 70.3 (half iron distance).

I needed to find the time to follow a training plan.  As Lynne would say, I needed to figure out how put myself on the top of my “to-do” list.

For the past five years, my training focus has been on our athletes – the women that we have had the privilege and honor to work with year after year – our “TRI-ladies”.  When I decided to attempt a 70.3, having never run or biked more than 10 or 40 miles respectively, I knew I needed more support and structure than I could muster on my own.

Last winter I came across a book by Sage Rountree called The Athletes Guide to Yoga.  I discovered that, in addition to being a gifted yoga teacher, she is a triathlete and a coach.  I imagined that it would be personally and professionally enriching to train with her.  An introductory e-mail quickly led to a two-day trip to Chapel Hill where we discussed training philosophies and options.  The next thing I knew, I had registered for the Beach2Battleship race in Wilmington, North Carolina in November 2009. I had six months to prepare. The late season race allowed me to find the training time I needed with my coaching season over and my children back in school.

What I hadn’t imagined was that my experience over the last six months would draw me even closer to the women that I coach.  I did miss training with a group of like-minded women but felt completely supported by Sage and my Team Training New England community  — not to mention my family!

Other than that, all of the ingredients were there:  (1) commit to an event that is outside of your comfort zone, (2) trust the training and (3) follow through to the best of your ability.

I am elated to report that once again the recipe worked!  Not only did I love the process of training, which in and of itself was gratifying and transformative, but the event exceeded my expectations.  I look forward to my next 70.3!

How to attach lace locks to your sneakers

You may have learned how to tie your shoelaces when you were kindergarten.  But, tying your shoelaces during a transition from bike to run in a triathlon is very inefficient.  Lace Locks are an inexpensive and effective way to shave precious time off of your transition.

Watch this quick video with step by step instructions in how to easily attach your lace locks to your running shoes.

Saint Joseph College Athlete Tackles Sprint Triathlon

by Mary Collins
When the average person hears the word “Triathlon” they may know it involves biking, swimming and running, but, more likely, they think of some vague endurance test that’s very long and very hard; words like “Ironman” might come to mind.

And, of course, all of that is true for some triathletes, but for those participating in Team Training New England (TTNE), run by Lynne Tapper and Janice Cohen in the Hartford area, the process is rarely just about the miles and feats of endurance.

Marlanda Hamilton, a rising sophomore on the volleyball team at Saint Joseph College, did not even know how to swim. But when her coach told her about a scholarship offered by TTNE, which included free gear, eight weeks of twice-weekly training sessions and the fee for a competition in Massachusetts, Marlanda didn’t hesitate to sign up.

“I actually learned how to swim two weeks before the first TTNE meeting,” she said, while sitting in the lobby of the O’Connell Center for an interview. “I had some friends in the pool with me showing me the basics of the freestyle stroke.”

TTNE already had strong ties to Saint Joseph College because they often used the college’s facilities for their training sessions.
“During our second year of TTNE,” Lynne Tapper says, “we approached Saint Joseph College about using their facilities. We cold-called Debbie Fiske (Associate Athletic Director). We loved the idea of working with an all-women college for our all-women training groups.

“They were really generous from the start. In 2007 Debbie  did her National Girls and Women in Sport Day, which is part of a national event put on by the Women Sports Foundation. I had actually worked with that myself and was always a bit frustrated that they had so much for girls but not women, especially the pre-Title IX crowd.  So I pitched the idea to Debbie that we run an indoor event in February for women as well. It was open to anyone. We’ve done it several winters now and the last one had more than 100 competitors.

“So when Janice and I decided we wanted to give a scholarship to someone, Saint Joseph seemed like a fine place to start. The fact that triathlons take a lot of time, energy and money to train for can mean there are a lot of barriers [to participation] and we wanted to open it up to a wider range.”
Marlanda, who turned 19 during the summer training, admits that she felt particularly intimidated by the age difference.

“I was intimidated by being around such a different group of people [mostly white, middle-aged women] but it felt like a family environment and everyone was great.”

As many as thirty women enrolled in the TTNE summer 2010 program might show at any given workout, which meant there were always plenty of buddies to do laps with and to get pointers from. Some were moms with young children who wanted a break; others were challenging themselves after devastating injuries or a lifetime of inactivity. They shared the common purpose of building better physical health and trying to compete in and complete the Massachusetts State Triathlon on July 18 at Lake Dennison. The task: 1/3 mile swim in a lake; 12 mile bike ride (including a mile hill climb) and 3.1 mile run.

Marlanda herself had two jobs at the time, but dropped one so she could handle the training schedule better. Her Dunkin Donuts supervisor accommodated her needs so she continued to work there. Some days her mother could bring her to the track sessions with the group or to the pool, but other times she had to load her gear onto a city bus and make her way over to wherever TTNE might be meeting.

RACE DAY
Marlanda rose at 5:30 a.m., put her new bike in her mother’s van and together they made their way from their hotel to the start of the race.
Six hundred or so competitors—men and women—mingled at the start as they received their numbers, an ankle bracelet that would keep track of their times on each segment, and hit the marker station where a volunteer penned on each athlete’s body his or her number and age.

Marlanda was in the pink swim cap group, which included women of all ages. They waited on the beach while the first wave of male competitors entered the water.
“They looked like they were going to war,” Marlanda says of the men.

THE SWIM
Two weeks of lessons with friends, seven weeks of training at various pools and now Marlanda Hamilton had to race with competitors in an open lake in record heat. TTNE Coach Janice Cohen had looked into getting a swim buddy for Marlanda at the Massachusetts event, which the organizers approved. So the Saint Joseph College volleyball player found herself towering over a man named Geo on the beach, her swim buddy, who swam by her side and coached her through her breathing and strokes as she made her way around one huge orange floatable marker to the next.

THE BIKE
Hundreds of bicycles lay racked in dozens of rows and as the athletes came out of the water, through an inflatable arch and into the bike launch area, things got confusing fast.

“I went in the wrong direction at first,” Marlanda admits. “But there was no one else around so I just collected myself and found my bike and got started. I did forget to turn my heart monitor on.”

In each section of the race, Marlanda found a “partner” to work with. At the swim section, Geo was assigned to her, but on the bike, she just picked out someone going at the same pace. Together with her newfound friend, she tried to tackle the one mile hill.
“We thought we’d just finished it but then we saw the sign, ‘Crush the Hill’ on the side of the road, so we knew it was still ahead. I wanted to stop but I kept going and going.”
Once she got over the top, most of it was downhill.

“I admit to doing a little sightseeing at that point,” she says, laughing and flashing her perfect smile.

THE RUN
Many athletes struggle with the transition from the intense bike ride to the run. Legs wobble. Backs seize up. Feet cramp. Once again, Marlanda found someone in her pace range and chatted and teamed with that person to help her pace herself through the race.

THE FINISH LINE
A group of TTNE competitors in blue shirts were already at the finishing line with their cow bells cheering on fellow teammates as they crossed the finish line. Marlanda says seeing that group was one of the highlights of the entire training for her.

Of course her mother, Michelle Hamilton, who was also there, admits, “It was so nerve wracking. I was really nervous that she was doing this event, but she always does things that no one else would do.”

Now, when she goes to work at the Dunkin Donuts, Marlanda is known as the Tri-girl. “I don’t mind that!” she says.

She’s ready to try again, possibly for the indoor in February, only this time no swim buddy and “I want my volleyball team to join me.”

Mary Collins
penmary@aol.com
www.marycollinswriter.net
Mary Collins’ new book, American Idle: A Journey Through Our Sedentary Culture, won the Grand Prize for Nonfiction at the 2010 Indie Book Awards.
She completed the sprint triathlon at Lake Dennison with Marlanda.

The following gear and services were generously provided by Team Training New England, Newington Bicycle, Fleet Feet Hartford, Trek Bicycle, Heart Zones Coaching, Max Performance, Courtyard Marriott Fitchburg:  a new road bike; running shoes; triathlon suit, swim goggles, program fee, race registration and hotel accommodations.