Here’s a Letter From The Editor of RUNNING: The Thinking Runners’ Magazine. Summer/Fall 1979.
You learn much about yourself training to run fast marathons. And injuries can be crazy-making. – JDW
What do you do when they say you can’t run anymore? What can you do?
I don’t yet know what I shall do, but I think about it. I think about the day when my too large, too slow body – with knees pointing in different directions and feet twisting in two others – breaks down for that last irreparable time. I cannot forget the pain which dogs my every stride, the anxiety that each step may be the one which signals another acute malady.
I admit I could do more to protect myself. I should lose weight as that would diminish the stress on my knees. But dieting is almost as difficult as not running. After all, I am ten inches taller than I was in the fifth grade but just fifteen pounds heavier.
Okay, so I was a rather larger ten-year-old. Got my start in athletics playing defensive line in football. Not a particular position, but the entire line.
I could certainly do more stretching, although I seem thus to incur injury rather than prevent it. Recent data indicate mine is not an isolated response. A study by the Honolulu Marathon Association found that runners who stretch are more frequently injured than those who do not.
I could probably decide to wear one of my four pairs of orthotics. Each different. Each designed by a nationally renowned sports podiatrist.
I could pray.
The young runner. Circa 1972
I might also divert my maniacal allegiance to another compulsion, another obsession. An alternative to running. Of course, my knees, which have difficulty moving forward in a straight line, seem inherently unsuited for activities requiring almost omni-directional movement. That eliminates basketball, tennis and racquetball – the sports of my youth, my parents and the indoors respectively.
Unfortunately, hang gliding, sky diving and mountain climbing – sports requiring just those attributes I so exude, e.g., coordination, audacity and steely nerve – also demand too much from the knees.
Roller skating is out, because it’s so “in.” I could never bring myself to attempt any sport featured on the front cover of People magazine.
Despite my intermediate life saving certificate – earned at Camp Wahnekeeya under the pulchritudinous tutelage of a boyhood fantasy, she was gentle yet firm – I can’t swim a lick. A recent layoff caused me to dogpaddle a mile while being swamped by arthritic septuagenarians. Old folks have no respect for the inept.
And forget biking. I once did try some semi-serious cycling to maintain my aerobic conditioning, only to find my stress fracture healed before my rear end did.
I have been injured so often I actually considered taking up golf. I really did. Clearly, the stress on my knees would be somewhat less than absorbed by running ten-fifteen miles daily.
And while the fitness benefits of golf may be minimal, the tangential amenities are enticing. The 19th Hole, for instance – golfers can drink hard liquor without guilt. I don’t consume the stuff myself, but I could probably work up to it.
Telvision coverage of golf is infinitely superior to that which running receives. (For that matter, TV coverage of motorized bar stool racing is superior.) I can envision myself sitting in the clubhouse, watching a televised golf match, hoping some chump will shoot a hole-in-one and buy a round of drinks.
Golf. Chasing a little white ball all over a cow pasture. When you catch up with the ball – assuming you find it – you club it with a stick, and off you go again. As Dr. Dudley White said: “Golf is a good way to ruin a walk.” And it certainly isn’t running.
But one imagines golf might possibly replace running. I can imagine myself playing thirty-six holes a day, eighteen in the morning and eighteen at night. On Saturday I could go out early to play three, even four rounds. I could establish personal records for distance off the tee, longest putt sunk, and best eighteen hole score. I might record most consecutive bunker shots, shortest putt missed, fewest mulligans, etc. I could have one pair of shoes for a wet course, another for a dry course. And think about the number of clubs a golfer might have. Or chart the weekly average of holes played. Year after year after year.
There are golf magazines, too, so maybe I could write an article for beginning duffers. Perhaps start a new periodical: The Thinking Golfer’s Magazine.
You now have a better idea of what injury might mean. The alternatives are as depressing as the physical problem itself. When I get injured I get depressed. When I get depressed, I eat, so I get fat. Fat is depressing.
This is all very boring, ergo injury must be avoided. Easier written than accomplished. The very nature of competitive distance running seems to demand injury. This is particularly true for those Runner’s like myself, whose bodies simply not built to strike the ground some 50,000 to 100,000 times in a week,
So, what can you do when they say you can’t run anymore?
I, for one, do not let it stop me. I may slow down, but I do not stop. My last good race was two and a half years ago, but I trudge on. Looking for another cure, another painkiller, another shoe, anything which might allow me to run the way I think I can.
I do not really mind not being fast. Years ago, I knew I was never going to be a great runner, but I was getting good. I never won a race nor did I expect to. All I ever wanted was to be as good as I could be. To be as fast as my no-twitch muscles, hard work and desire would permit.
Unfortunately, the very tenacity which allowed me to run faster than anyone could ever imagine, also permitted me to destroy myself as an athlete. I trained so hard then, I can hardly train now.
Moral: Listen to your body. Train, don’t strain. Less is more. You have all heard the litany of advice, and you’ll hear it again. All I suggest is that you pay heed. The greatest athlete in the wo led is ineffective if he cannot run.
And running is only valuable when you can do it. There are no ex-runners… only those who run and those who don’t.
Billy, Amby and I have won a total of five Boston marathons.
Jump ahead a few months. Running with a barely noticeable limp at A Gathering of Eagles in Eugene, I ran faster than I dreamed.
Leap forward almost forty years, today I am an arthritic septuagenarian. Still not much of a swimmer.
Still going as fast as I can.