Hockey Players Who Run

Some people don't know this about Bryan and me, but we are really hockey players who run from time to time. Of course we do not play nearly as much hockey as we used to and in all fairness have probably run now almost as much as we have played hockey... almost.

Looking back on my running I always find it humorous to note that while I received no major injuries from hockey, I have gained or earned a number from running that not only have waylaid my athletic endeavors but actually on the wrong days threaten normal life. I find it to be funny because my cross-country and track coach in high school used to hate that I played hockey in between the two. She'd say, "You're going to get to hurt playing hockey," and then would add all sorts of other comments to further her case. To this day, and even though tomorrow may prove otherwise, hockey has yet to deal me more than a light contusion at worst. Running on the other hand....

My first major injury from running came while running a regional cross country race. While taking a quick right hand turn down a short steep hill my legs slipped quickly out from under me. To avoid falling I reached out to a nearby tree and corrected my course back up and onto my legs where I preferred to be. Two days later I could barely run without my back hurting - bad. A few pills later I was running in the state meet pain free. Over the next few years my lower back would randomly shoot sudden and painful pains (sometimes most inconveniently in races when I'm looking for excuses to stop), but worst of all would throb almost every night when I went to sleep. Years later I found out that I have a stress fracture in my lower back that can only be healed through surgery, maybe.

Then I found out what an IT band is... and for those of you who know, I'm sorry. It started as a slow ache and turned into something that would tighten my left knee into intense pain after 15 minutes of running. Nothing I could do would help - stretching, massage, chiropractic, ice, compression, swimming, biking, and worst of all... total rest. After nine months of searching through these fruitless endeavors for an answer to my running pain I was finally introduced to an IT band specialist. After he almost vomited at the extreme waste of time my other doctors had prescribed to me, he drew a surgery on a dry erase board for me. And so at just under a full year off during my freshman year of college, I began running again in June - 8 short minutes, winded and unable to believe I'd ever run more than a mile or so again.

Then came the wonderful side effects of surgery and the side effects not knowing about proper footwear and diagnosis - injury after injury strewn throughout attempts to get my collegiate career to a near respectable level. Hip flexors, achilles tendons, fatty pads swollen from scar tissue of a scope, the other IT band, more scar tissue, foot pain, more of that lower back stuff, and other things I'm sure I've tried to block out. I spent almost as much time in our cold whirl pool as I did studying for most of my classes, or with ice wrapped around various parts of my body as I hobbled to the cafeteria - "is it halloween?" I'm sure it looked like it.

Ya looking back hockey doesn't seem to have been the dangerous sport for me. I'm sure someone else's story may be different, but at this point I think that there is one conclusion any of us runners have come to at some point: while running can bring great or periodical joys and it is of immense personal benefit to our health, it also brings with it pain that compares to little else in life I've done.

I'm sure that plenty of football players are limping around with injuries that have become lifelong who would argue that their sport too offers such a note, and I'm sure they have a lot to say on the matter. All I know is this - running, the supposed safe sport, has helped me to experience and endure more pain than any other athletic activity I have pursued (baseball, diving, swimming, hockey, soccer). Perhaps the manner in which running has been pursued can be seen as why she has been such a terrible lover, at least at times. But in the same breathe, let me add that when I come to call on my other lover (besides my wife) the less I give of myself the more it hurts every time. If I had enough energy and barring injury, every run would be quick paced because it is there where the most joy is to be had. Slowing too much, even a little bit, and suddenly my whole run turns into a morbidly painful shadow of what it would have been.

Bryan talks about running to keep the demons away... I think for now I'm going to talk about it as "keeping her happy." When she's not happy she seems only content to cause me immense pain (again, running, and not my wife). Look to new posts on - Running, My Lover