Working So Hard Yet Going Nowhere

March brings warmer days, sunny skies, and the promise of spring. High school athletes are just starting their track seasons, while us college folks are wrapping up the indoor half and starting outdoor, the "real" track season. A couple new individuals have joined us and the team is out running in shorts on a daily basis now thanks to temperatures in the 40's. Perfect running weather.

I only wish I could take advantage of it.

I've been reduced to no running whatsoever, a final attempt by Russ and the athletic trainers to eliminate my peroneal issues. While my teammates are out enjoying the warm weather I'm stuck indoors, huffing away on the elliptical. My daily trial of sweat and stagnant motion has become a saga of sorts, the story of a season going downhill from its very first week. After dropping steadily since the beginning of December, my weekly mileage has finally levelled off at zero. I've watched as nearly all of my fellow runners have sustained injuries of their own, nursed them, healed, and returned to the roads and the track only to be replaced by others. Some of them have come and gone multiple times, yet always I remain, sentinel of the fitness center. I've run the full circle of abuses in the training room, suffering electrocution, bruising, freezing, and burning at the hands of students and their superiors alike, each trying to find a way of forcing my leg into healing. Numerous painful sessions of the so-called Graston "Massage" have left my lower leg discolored from internal bleeding for the past several weeks, all in the name of re-injuring tissue to jumpstart the healing process, and all to no avail. Ultrasound sessions that had no effect in January are now being tried once again, along with the application of lasers. Yes, lasers. I didn't even know there was such a thing as laser therapy. Apparently Jenny, Buck, and Russ have exhausted all available options and are now trying whatever random techniques they can think of that may or may not have anything at all to do with a chronically sore peroneal tendon. The doctor is coming in later this week to look at me, and there's a 90% chance he'll suggest a heel wedge-which won't work of course, because we've already tried three different heel wedges. And because they never work. The only treatment thus far that has had any real noticeable effect is the simple ice bath, which I rarely get a chance to use because they drain it before I'm finished working out and getting all my other treatments. I've more or less come to terms with the fact that I'll never be healthy again, and that as long as I continue running I will always carry at least one chronic injury with me. Such is my fate.

I must be getting to bed now. Off to the fitness room at 8 am to give the elliptical machine its workout. I'm getting very good at that.