Part of My Story

As I sat in my last period final exam today, the last minute of the class took the longest. Not because I was excited for the summer break, because I am, but because I was reflecting on the whole year. I had seen a lot of people seriously hurt, myself included, from injuries. I sat and examined everything that's happened, but I just remember thinking those words "I've done it." I've done it! As for me, I am now a junior in high school. I made it through sophomore year! Man, this feels just about as good as the picture above. So as I take today to look back on sophomore year, I remember things I did that were smart and things not so smart. A lot of things could've gone differently, but if they hadn't, then I wouldn't be who and where I am today.

Thinking back to the days of last summer, when high school XC conditioning started, my buddy and I were very motivated. We showed up every day at practice, and unlike last year, we were focused and serious. We ran our hearts out every day, and we started to see some results. Some workouts were easier than we remembered them last year, and we were running them faster with less fatigue. But we also started to feel the effects of overtraining. We were running at least an hour every day, and not at an easy pace. Throw in some speed workouts every third day or so, and it made us very tired. But, we got pushed to continue training, and even to step it up a notch. So these longs days turned into long double days, and we started to go downhill fast. Within a week of both of us starting to run double days, we were both injured, me with shin splints and him with a pulled calf muscle. We couldn't go on, and it set our XC success back considerably. So, that wasn't the best start to any season, but regardless, we were forced to learn from it. Our experience with that has made us more cautious in the present, and we're both smarter because of it. That was our XC season, and we pretty much didn't improve due to that setback, so we ran about mid to low 18 minute 5K's for the remainder of the season.

Moving from XC as a high school sport, I moved to swimming in the fall. We had a lot of fun on swim team, with relays every Friday to team dinners the night before a meet. But, swimming was a big time for me to keep my fitness up because I couldn't do anything else. I'll explain. Early January 2013, I was riding my bike along a greenway trail in downtown Raleigh, on a rainy early Saturday morning. I approached a bridge, which I started to cross with no problems; however, the bridge made a left turn, which I took normally, but due to the rain and the wood that the bridge was made out of, I turned and immediately my wheel went out from under me. I crashed to the ground, slamming my head on the wooden surface after landing directly on my left hip joint. In order of events, my hip hit first, then my knee, followed by my elbow, then shoulder, and finally, my head. After untwisting my ankle from the pedal, which had still been clipped in, I noticed my bike was trapped under the fence of the bridge. Like a true triathlete, I immediately forgot about my injuries and rushed to free the bike. After I assured that my bike was OK, I returned to nursing my injuries. I was bleeding profusely from the shoulder and knee, and my hip hurt. A lot. I called my mother to come and get me, and she picked me up. For some reason, we hadn't thought to go to a doctor. Then, the next week, I was riding some workouts and crashed again, hitting the same hip. All that week before the second crash, I was feeling hip pain. We went to a doctor about halfway through that week, which had assessed me and put on some kinesiology tape. But after this crash, I began to feel hip flexor pain. With every step I took, my left and right hip flexors felt as though they were pulling out of my pelvis where they attach. It was painful to get out of bed in the morning. Think it's hard getting out of bed when you just don't want to go to school? Haha imagine those hip flexor problems plus having no motivation to get out of bed and go to school. It was a really tough time. The pain was similar, sometimes worse, when I rode my bike, but because I loved this sport so much, I had to. I still rode my bike somewhat frequently, which was a terrible idea. So, seeing that I don't get a lot of time to do regular high school boy things, I went to go play a pick up football game at my friend's church. We were almost done with a game of flag football, on the last play, when I got unfairly tackled going for the winning drive. Well, I was tackled in such a way that all 3 ligaments in my ankle were torn right through. That was just fantastic news, because I just wanted to add on to the list of injuries. But luckily, I sprain my ankle and tear the ligaments somewhat frequently, and so I healed in about 4 weeks. I was hobbling onto the pool deck at high school practices in a boot, then removing the boot, sliding on my stomach like a seal into the water, swimming, while doing my best to not kick at all, and then sliding back out and putting on the boot again. It was actually quite funny to see. Well, I thought that if I can't bike that much, I'll run more. So, at physical therapy, I was working my hip flexors for about 2 weeks, and I got up on the treadmill. I ran no further than 10 minutes, but at about 7 minutes, I felt a very distinct pain in my achilles tendon. That wasn't good. I went to see another doctor, and was diagnosed with Achilles Tendinitis in my left leg. Great. Another injury. However, I had to run at school for a grade in my Personal Fitness class, so I ran the mile with Achilles Tendinitis. That was a terrible thing to have done, but I had to. So, at swim practice, I had to worry about my hip flexors, which hurt if I kicked too hard, my ankle, which had no mobility from the torn ligaments, and my achilles tendon, which couldn't support the overload of pushing off the wall. Regardless, I used a pull buoy, turned around at the flags in open water, and did my best not to kick at all. This made swimming very hard, but kept me in decent shape. In late February, I had no progress in my hips. So I went to a chiropractor, who wanted an X-ray as soon as possible. Immediately I agreed, I was desperate to heal. I got a pelvic X-ray, and the result was very surprising to me. My pelvis was tilted 15 degrees to the right! So my left hip flexor had been overstretched while my right hip flexor had been overloaded. My achilles tendon problem was also directly related to the tilt of my pelvis. So, for the next week, I went back to the chiropractor and got slowly readjusted back to normal pelvic position. After this, my hips magically started to heal. Make sense, doctors? I was not a big fan of any of the 6 doctors I had visited for help, because they all proceeded to tell me I was fine and to rest for 2 weeks. Common protocol I suppose, but I was so frustrated. I can't emphasize this enough, I was going through a rough time. But now I'm through the worst of it. My shin splints still linger from XC season, my hip flexors are continually sore from those crashes, and my achilles still acts up pretty regularly. Actually, just the other day I visited a special type of massage therapist, who assessed me, and then proceeded to tell me that due to my last couple of months, my hip flexors and glutes don't work. I'm not kidding, those were his exact words! They apparently don't fire the way they should. But I'm addressing the problem and getting it fixed! As I've learned almost better than a lot of athletes I know personally, the human body heals! You just have to find the right problem and get it fixed. So my advice here is to never give up. I know some of you think that if you have a bad injury, then you won't ever heal, but that isn't always true. You can do whatever you put your mind to, and an injury can never stop you from doing something you love.

Guys, don't let an injury knock you down as far as mine did. It was honestly the hardest months of my life, not being able to train without pain. But you can heal, and it does get better. It can reshape your entire ideas about training and about life, and you will learn something positive from it, I'm positive. Keep your head up through injuries guys. It's worth it to get through them.

Happy training everybody. Be safe.