Runners get injured. There, I said it. Now let’s move on to the larger truth: Few of these injuries are serious. Most runners soon return to their regular training routine with no permanent loss from the wear and tear they have endured.
How do I know this? Here’s my argument. Marathons are so popular these days that most entrants have to register six to nine months in advance. That’s plenty of time to get injured and stop running. However, roughly 90 percent of marathon entrants actually show up on the start line. Of those, more than 95 percent reach the finish.
This doesn’t sound much like an epidemic of injured runners on crutches or in surgery. In fact, it’s more like testimony to the grit, determination, and healthy running of most marathoners. They may falter, but they rarely fail.
Studies keep claiming that anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of runners get injured in a calendar year. Maybe there’s some truth to that. It all depends on your definition of injury. If you’re including a sore muscle that requires a day or two of icing, the numbers climb. However, if you define injury as something that demands six weeks in a cast, the numbers drop precipitously.
It’s no wonder that the same studies can’t unlock what causes running injuries. They point a finger at only two consistent factors: prior injury and high mileage. Every other potential cause, amazingly, is unproven, including speed work and frequent racing. The long list of injury-recovery aids is likewise mostly unproven: orthotics, massage, chiropractic, physical therapy, stretching, and all manner of special equipment.
I’m not trying to fill you with despair. Quite the opposite. As I as noted in the example of the marathon entrants and finishers, I believe there’s good reason to feel optimistic about running injuries. Here’s why: The vast majority involve soft-tissue complaints. These usually melt away after several days or weeks. In other sports you can break a bone or suffer wrenching knee or shoulder tears. These may require surgery, and will certainly demand a long, slow recovery. You might never return to your former strength and range of motion. Runners are rarely afflicted with these sorts of serious injuries. We bounce back quickly.
Don’t catastrophize: Runners are so disciplined and determined (and maybe a bit control-freaky) that we too often despair when we get injured. We torment ourselves with worry that the injury will cause us to lose everything—all the training, all the goals, all the commitments to join others on race day. This rarely happens.
Injuries force us to reevaluate and improvise a bit. We need to stay flexible. No, we’re not going to be able to do every long run on the sixteen-week training schedule. But yes, there’s still time to recover and run strong.
Don’t panic. You didn’t just lose your best friend, or learn that you had a rapidly spreading cancer. You lost five days of training due to a sprained ankle. In all likelihood you’ll be back on the roads in almost no time at all.
Come back slowly: The biggest mistake an injured runner can make is to return too soon to normal training. That’s how minor injuries develop into longer-lasting and more severe ones. Take your time. Mix walking and very short, very slow runs. Build up cautiously. Any days you lose now will be like nothing compared to the many you would lose with a more serious condition.
Take pauses to rehabilitate: Injuries often have an unexpected outcome: you run better after you recover. This occurs when the injury forced you to rest from an overtraining period, and it happened to me in 1968. I won the Boston Marathon, but then dropped out of the Olympic Trials several months later with a nagging injury. Facing the pressure of the Trials, I had refused to rest and recover (as I now know I should have).
Depressed by my Trials failure, I went home and lay on the beach for the last two weeks of August. I did nothing. Then I accepted an invitation to a big new September race in Canada. I won the 12-miler handily, defeating a Canadian star who went on to place tenth in the Olympic marathon a month later. The very Olympic marathon I wasn’t running due to my stupid obstinacy and refusal to rest an injury.
There is more life and running after an injury. Plenty of it.