Running with "opathy"

As I alluded to in the post "Rubbing Shoulders with Giants," Betsy developed some discomfort in her right leg a few weeks ago. This immediately brought about two challenges. The first and more obvious challenge was to figure out how this would affect her ability to train. The discomfort was severe enough that she could not run, despite her elevated pain tolerance (see "Inspiration and Bloodied Heels"). Fortunately, her coach advised against pushing through the pain, emphasizing the idea of "not allowing a small problem become a big problem". She was encouraged to take a few days off, and then start with walking. This transitioned to walking for about an hour on a treadmill at 10% - 15% grade, allowing the heart rate to rise for aerobic benefit, without putting too much stress on the knee. She continued her strength workouts and made an appointment to see a physical therapist for evaluation.

Her PT visit resulted in a diagnosis of "quadricep tendinopathy, lateral hamstring tendinopathy, and lateral hip weakness". It felt good to have a name for what was causing her suffering, especially since it came with a treatment plan and a path forward. Armed with stretching routines, additional physical therapy sessions, and well timed breaks, she was able to complete a 5 hour walk/run alternating 3 minutes of walking with 2 minutes of running. After 5 hours of this she was able to cover a 25 miles (about a 12 minute per mile pace with much less stress than a continuous run). Not only did this help her keep her distance up for the week but it also provided her experience with a tool that will likely come in handy for the main event.

The second challenge brought about by this leg "opathy" was mental and came in two parts. The first part was the absence of the expected "runners high" that typically follows workouts when done consistently (click here for more about runners high and other brain benefits of exercise). The second part of the mental test involved appreciating that this journey will come with obstacles. It's one thing to acknowledge that there will be hurdles and setbacks but it's another to actually experience them. In the moment, these trials come with negative "what ifs" that pile on and create spirals of doubt, leading to questions about the ability to recover from the setback, let alone accomplish the goal. The benefit of appreciating that setbacks will occur is that it helps prevent you from being completely derailed when they do happen. It builds "mental toughness" to use when your grit is being challenged.

When asked about her mental space at the onset of the injury, Betsy said that she thought her ability to do long runs would be limited and she would have to break her training and run across America into more frequent short runs. She doesn't recall having a lot of negative "what ifs". She did express frustration over the setback.

Betsy ran 51 miles last week.....

PS: I am familiar with "-itis" meaning inflammation, as in "tendonitis" being inflammation of a tendon. I was less familiar with "-opathy" in skeletal muscle anatomy, so I looked into it. According to the Clinical Anatomy website "Medical Terminology Daily," the suffix "-opathy" is formed by two parts: "path" (meaning feeling, suffering, diseased state) and "y" (meaning process). Therefore, "-opathy" can be thought of as meaning "disease process" or simply "disease." This means Betsy was diagnosed with a quadricep "disease process" and a lateral hamstring "disease process."

And just like that, the reassurance of having a specific diagnosis seems to disappear...

Until next time.