It’s Thursday yet again, which means over in the Runners Lounge a new topic is being mulled over. This week we are talking about a potentially painful subject: Common mistakes and cardinal sins of running!

When I look back upon my running “career” I must say that I have always been a good sport when it came to listening to my coach, and more importantly, to my body. Maybe that’s because by the time I actually started racing competitively I already had a couple of decades of recreational running under my fuel belt (“fuel” what? I don’t even own one, but whatever). So by the time I trained for my first marathon I was long past that status of a novice runner. By that time I had already enjoyed running daily for 17 years, injury free! And I was determined and strong willed to keep it that way. So far, so good (knock on head wood)!

During the past few years since I have started racing and training with like minded people I have however observed one very common and dangerous phenomena. That of overtraining and not giving your body enough rest before race day. Overstressing your body can lead to fatigue at best and stress fractures at worst. And believe me, I have seen it all. People tend to think they know better than those who are experienced runners. They truly believe that taper weeks are for the weak. Someone actually said this to me when we were one week away from the race… That same person decided to forgo the 1 hour easy run the weekend prior to race day but instead get another 20 miler in… Then she continued with speed workouts during the week, ate her lunches at Taco Bell and thought she was so much better prepared than the rest of us who tapered, rested, slept, and fueled our bodies with essential nutrients. Her goal finish time was an hour beyond mine and I waited anxiously for her to cross the finish line… Three hours later there was still no sign of her. She spent most of the second half of the marathon walking and finally reached the finish over four hours past her goal, crying and limping! Not only had she over trained, she had also continued to run on a stress fracture that no one knew about, ignoring the pain for weeks. Needless to say that first race was also her last. I ran into her about a year later when I was training for my third marathon and she just shook her head in disbelieve. How could I possibly put myself through such a horrendous thing again, she wondered. And this i just one of the worst examples of what can potentially happen if you do not pay attention to a nagging pain that does not go away, or follow a well proven training plan, or both!

Now, even though I have always been very good at following my coaches advice, never ignore rest days (even if they feel like a conspiracy to kill me), and taper like a good girl, that does by no means indicate that I have never made a mistake that cost me dearly and could have potentially stopped me in my tracks at mile 14 with 12.2 miles to go to the finish… One of the many things you will encounter as a runner is the recommendation that you should never ever try anything new on race day. This is especially significant for long races. If you ever meet me in the midst of a group of runners I will be the one who speaks up loudest about this, now even more so than before June 3rd, 2007. On that day I lined up at the start of the San Diego Rock ‘N’ Marathon. This was my second one in San Diego and 5th marathon overall. I had had a phenomenal training season of running with people who were generally faster than me and therefore had improved my pace while staying injury free. I had set myself a goal time at 3 hours, 20 minutes and was therefore fortunate enough to start from Corral 1, with the ELITE MEN!!! Woo-Hoo! Although that sense of camaraderie was short lived as they took off and left the rest of us commoners in the dust. I was OK with that. Everything looked promising. The weather was perfect, foggy and cool, I had actually managed to eat properly that morning, I felt great. One thing I had chosen to ignore was the fact that, unlike the previous marathons that I had run, San Diego was serving a new drink. Accelerade had just appeared on the market and was sponsoring this race instead of Gatorade. During our training runs we had always run on Gaterode and for recovery I drank FRS every single day. It had worked great for me and I was truly oblivious to the fact that now on race day I would drink something I had never tried before. Even though I knew about it in advance I never once checked into this drink but instead completely ignored the red flag that stood against everything I had preached. When I started drinking Accelerade at mile 2.5 I was already so deep into my zone no alarm bells could possible get me out of it. It tasted good enough. After all! The first 13 miles of the race flew by and my running mates and I reached the half way point in 1 hour, 38 minutes. We were right on the heals of the 3:15 pacer and at that time I felt as if I could easily keep up with him for the second half, if not overtake him at one point. That feeling of euphoria lasted exactly for another mile and a half. In fact by the time we reached mile 14 I had started to feel a minor pinch in my right side. By the time we passed the 15 mile mark my entire right side had cramped and the pain was radiating to the left side. I kept telling myself to breathe rhythmically even though I was more or less gasping for air. The pain became so severe I could no longer bend my torso but instead ran like someone who had a stick up their backside. The awkward running form (putting it mildly) put so much stress on my feet that they now started to cramp as well which in turn led to cramps in my calves, especially the left one. I hate to think just how pathetic I looked. In the end I had no choice but to stop dead in my tracks and walk. The walking eased up the cramping a little but every time I started running again I felt like someone had taken a knife to my insides. The 3:15 pacer was long gone as well. I ended up walking from mile 17 to mile 18, my feet barely leaving the ground. In the end the cramping did let up a bit, so much so that I could start running again, but I never ran pain free or completely without one cramp or another again for the last 8.2 miles. The person who saved me in the end was one of our coaches who was supporting our team from the sidelines and picked me up at mile 22 (he probably took pity at me – in fact he even said “I know you don’t feel like it but you look GREAT” – yeah, it wasn’t lost on me that he really had to force himself to say “Great”). I stayed behind him, just concentrating on his leg turnover as he led the way for the next three miles. In the end I finished in 3 hours, 29 minutes. Still a personal PR but not what I had set out to do a few hours earlier. Bite me!

So what went wrong? I had asked myself that for many miles, miles that felt like mega miles. Turns out, those who do not do their homework nor follow their own advice suffer most. One of the ingredients Accelerade lists on their drink is “whey protein isolate (made from milk)”… What was that you said? Milk? For someone who actually cannot digest milk I was surprised I saw the finish at all. 

That evening I had finally gotten over all the cramping business but the awkward gate I must have walked and run with for 12.2 miles left me with a nice case of impinchment in my left leg and a little in my right as well, just for extra credit. As a bonus I found myself on Rusty’s PT table for some nice myotech muscular therapy. You don’t know what that is, you say? Well, there are women who compare the deep tissue massage to the pain of childbirth… All that for not doing as I said! Brilliant!

Today’s Running Tip: Do not try anything new on Race Day!!!

I am certain I don’t have to explain myself further!