I heard, but did I listen?

Zona, Dave, and Matt reflected in 'The Bean'.
Photo courtesy of Zona.

By Matt Story

"Are you yessing me?"

That was a familiar question from my Mom back in my youth.  I heard she was talking and had asked a question.  Since I wasn't listening I just answered "yes" to placate her.  She saw through that pretty quickly.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.  I now have a 10 year old boy of my own who doesn't even bother with the yes.  Pretty much everything that doesn't interest him goes in one ear and out the other.  With him we try to stress the difference between hearing and listening.  Hearing is passive.  It is just the act of your ears picking up the sound.  Listening is active.  It requires your attention.

I found out this summer that I am no better a listener than my 10 year old.  Not when someone is talking to me -- although I'm sure I still need work in that area.  No, when my own body is talking to me.

I started off training for the Chicago Marathon back in June.  I had a very solid two months of training.  I watched my weekly mileage, ramping from 35 to 55 but mindful of the 10% rule.  I bonked on one long run but everything else was feeling good.  I was rolling every night and getting regular massages.  But come August some bad runs started creeping in.  I would get an occasional run where my legs had no bounce.  "Just tired legs," I thought to myself.  The next run I would bounce back.

Mid August we went up to Lake Winnepesaukee for our summer vacation.  The bad runs progressed from every other to two out of every three.  I lost the ability to hit on my marathon pace runs on the road.  I blamed the hills and thought my legs would come back after vacation.  So I kept plugging and things kept getting worse.  I started having runs where my left leg would have no push.  Breaking 9 minute pace was a struggle.

Come the end of August I skipped my first long run and needed to adjust.  Started to get lower leg pain that moved around, which was eerily reminiscent of the injury I had leading into Boston 2014.  The difference was that I had three months before the race to recover from that one, including five weeks of PT.  I was down to six weeks this time.  Out of stubbornness I followed the same pattern that I did before Boston.  Reduce mileage and cross train.  It had about the same effect.  Cross training felt good, running felt bad.  I was able to hit my track workouts and somehow win a 5K in this time, but I knew 26.2 was going to chew me up and spit me out.  I hit a low after bailing halfway through a track workout.  That Friday I was resigned to not finishing Chicago.

But Saturday was a new day.  I woke up and started actually using my brain.  Teri, my massage therapist, had mentioned that my left fibular head was stuck during my last few massages.  Maybe I should drop that puppy into Google.  This blog post came up.  It mentioned that a chiropractor was able to solve the problem in pretty short order.  So I called and made an appointment with Dr. Doug on Teri's recommendation, but I couldn't get in until Friday -- 9 days before the race.  But I at least had some hope.

Friday came and I met with Dr. Doug.  He checked me out for a few minutes, watched me walk, and agreed that my fibula was jammed, likely due to collapsed lateral (outside) arches.  In addition my pelvis was stuck forward on one side and back on the other, causing more impact on my left leg.  He did some adjustments on both my leg and pelvis and we scheduled three more appointments for the next week.  Over the week it seemed to get better, albeit slowly.  The leg was sore but would move.  But my last run before Chicago still left me with some doubt.

How did Chicago go?  Here is my Strava writeup:

Fought through a fibular issue (official term.. not sure) if my left leg to make it to the starting line of the Chicago Marathon. Why do injuries always happen in the races I need to sign up for far in advance? More about that some other time.  Despite most of my training being for 3:10ish I decided to run the early miles with Dave and aim for 3:20. I felt this was a safe goal despite the spotty training in the last month and a half. We were consistently clocking 7:3x through the early miles. The only blip was when the 3:15 pace group essentially ran over us which forced a slight speed up. Mentally that was the group I wanted to beat. But after that mile I started to get that bonkish feeling. WAY too early for that. Dave pulled ahead in the next mile as I tried to get my groove back. I kept him in sight for a few miles and then lost sight of him. Just tried to keep plugging, following that blue line. Pace was still OK, but had a doom is coming feeling. Dave caught up to me (potty break) around mile 14 or 15 and we were able to run a couple more together before he stepped off to stretch. I was able to hold it together mostly until 19 when the wheels started coming off. Pace slowed, left calf tightened (surprised it took that long). Pace group after pace group started chewing me up and spitting me out. Kept plugging, though, knowing it was a LONG walk from there. Tried to feed off the crowd and all the 'Go Lowell' calls. Sang Josie, did a lot of fist pumping, anything to get the crowd going. It didn't help the legs but made the time pass faster. Finished in zombie mode, but finished. Failed to PW by 30 seconds or so. Given two weeks ago I couldn't run without pain I'm happy with the finish. Not surprised the wheels came off due to the missed training. As always, swore off marathons immediately afterwards. But it's hard to go out on one like this. Have some things to figure out with my legs before even attempting training for another, though.

I was able to fight through to a 3:35:04 finish.  In a vacuum the time is disappointing, but given the obstacles encountered on the way I'll take it.

Hopefully this experience can help someone else who might have the same problem.  I haven't gone the orthotics route yet to address the arches.  I'm more comfortable with the devil I know versus the devil I don't.  Of course I'm debating training for another marathon.  Hopefully I'll listen better this time.