A one-time 2:25 marathoner is now a volunteer high school XC/T&F coach in Williamsburg, VA. May be projecting here, but I get the impression Coach thinks he could’ve run faster if he only had been able to duck injury.
He’s read all the OGOR pieces, but when Vol. 2 began, he decided another interview question would benefit all runners, young & old.
I agreed with him. The last shall be the first asked. – JDW
“So many runners get injured before they reach their full potential. Your top tier racing career lasted for at least (—) years. What supplemental exercises, if any, did you do to avoid injuries?“
Jim Pearson: Other than sporadic weight lifting and casual stretching, I basically just did my runs.
[Pearson’s highest weekly mileage was 182, and he had months of 729 and 719. He ran 6,174 miles in 1975 and 6,028 miles in 1978. He has run every day for the last half century.]
I only had two serious health issues when I was racing well: plantar fasciitis and what the physician described as a massive tear of the hamstring.
For the former, I ended up getting a few injections and orthotics, but those didn’t help much. A running friend, 2:18 marathoner Dick Holloway, heard about my problem and snarled, “I just ran through mine.” About six months later, I stopped whining and just tried to ignore the pain. After a bit of this, the pain stopped. I figured I had traumatized the nerve endings. For the latter, the hamstring, I also had injections, but nothing helped.
I mentioned this earlier. The same Guy Renfro told me to do leg curls. That sounded ridiculous. It hurt to run; it hurt to drive the car. I certainly wasn’t going to do leg curls. A year later, I saw Guy again. He asked about my hamstring, and I mumbled something about the lack of recovery.
Again he brought up leg curls. At this time I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. I put ten pounds on the bar and then cheated by using both legs. It didn’t rip me up as expected. It took one month of this exercise before I was curling 30 pounds with the bad leg alone. The hamstring felt perfect and never again gave me any trouble.
I thought of another memorable run while I was running yesterday.
It was in 1975 during the great flood that covered all the farms south of Ferndale with water. Our run that day was to intentionally head out to check the flood. We ran down the River Road to just past Sigurdson’s farm where we met the flood. After a quick discussion, it was agreed. We would continue.
Several kids removed their orthotics, and away we went. Most of the time the water was barely over a foot deep. We turned left onto Haxton which had remained above the flood waters. After about a quarter mile we came upon a group standing at where the road had been washed out. In the group was Ferndale Superintendent of Schools Jim Norris who saw us and said we should go across and help the people 60 yards away to get the pickup truck out of the water.
Without hesitation, and before he could eat his words, we were in the water and running. It wasn’t until Dwayne Harksell fell forward did I realize there was a current in the water. Barks and trash were streaming over his back. We could see the tops of fence posts, so we were able to stay in the center of the road. We got to the other side and successfully pushed the truck back onto the road. We then turned and headed back across the water.
As we passed the superintendent, I yelled “Don’t tell my mother.”
This was never mentioned again.
“The flood run went for a hair over ten miles for all who stayed with me and went back the way we had come. The two who took the shortcut to avoid returning through floods ended up running much more than that.” – Jim Pearson