The Lesson of the Torn Tendon
For those of you that laughed and cried tears of sympathy when you read about the great witches hat debacle during my race debut I thought I would give you an update on the most watched injury in history.
After x-rays, MRI scans and various Specialist and Physiotherapy appointments the diagnosis is in. I have torn the main tendon in my ankle and bruised a couple of the bones down there just for good measure. It seems that running for 9.5 kilometres after the initial impact perhaps didn’t help things. Hindsight is a wonderful gift for doctors to have on your behalf.
Since the injury I haven’t run at all – both Specialist and Physiotherapist said to me that the injury is indeed very rare and unique AND they still can’t understand how I managed to injure myself so badly. They are calling my injury the ‘Witches Hat Syndrome’ – albeit when they stopped laughing out loud.
My sense of frustration has been high to say the least – not helped by, again, both Specialist and Physiotherapist indicating to me that this injury takes time to heal ‘for a person of my age’. Oh please – let’s just rub it in! You know that it is a long time when every staff member of the Physiotherapist practice knows you by name and asks how the injury is.
At my last visit to my physio – something happened which changed my attitude completely. There had been a suggestion that surgery may be needed and to be honest that may still happen but my physio said something to me that really changed things. I have known my physio for longer than 20 years and really trust him and I think he saw a tad of frustration rising in me.
He said that his aim is to get me 100% well not 90% well because if I run again at 90% – the injury will return and that’s what often happens because most people are just too impatient.
I suspect that most of us think 90% is OK in anything!
At that moment I thought – how many times do I attempt things in life when I am only 90% well? Then when things go wrong I blame everyone else or circumstances when really it was my fault for attempting something at 90% capacity?
Perhaps in the future I should be patient and let the final 10 % heal so I can operate at a full 100%. So no running for me yet – the final 10% is taking some time BUT it will be worth it when I can run at 100%.
Guest Blogger – Romey Ritter – 1000 Messages
Recently, I was standing in line at my local supermarket waiting to pay for my items. I was looking at all the glossy magazines, noticing they are right next to all the chocolate bars. I started thinking it’s no wonder people are confused about what to eat and how to live healthy, as they are enticed to reach for a magazine and a chocolate bar on the way out of their local store.
Glossy magazines are plastered with slogans promising you the world when it comes to dieting, “guaranteed, take ten kilos off – tomorrow!” or “celebrity diet secrets” and then of course always something about Oprah and her latest dieting triumph or failure. The latest fad diet will have a focus and the magazine will contain adverts for exercise equipment, diet pills and the latest scientific breakthrough diet food.
Magazines put out a lot of health information. Literally thousands of articles are published yearly by magazines. They are the literal juggernaut of the diet industry, an industry that is worth over ten billion dollars worldwide. The problem is so much of the information published conflicts and has agenda’s on selling products for their advertisers.
Do we stop to realize there would be little need for a diet industry if people were healthy and made better food choices? Surely, if the information presented in the magazines was good, by the sheer number of magazine readers, the epidemic of obesity would be solved? Or at least we should experience a scaling back from epidemic to “high incidence rate” of obesity. Sadly the opposite is true we have an epidemic and with it comes a whole host of lifestyle diseases that are robbing people of a healthful and happy life. People are just plain confused about how to make healthy choices.
Conflicting opinions and the latest diet or exercise fad aside, there is just no ignoring the fact that we’ve got to get back to basics. Stop listening to misinformation and just keep it really simple:
1. Eat a diet where the bulk of your food is fresh vegetables and fruits
2. Avoid unnecessary and unsafe chemicals: pesticides, artificial sweeteners and flavors
3. Eliminating, or at least minimizing processed foods
4. Ensuring your proteins are from good sources**
5. Using whole grains-avoid white rice, white breads, pastas, cookies etc
6. Keep as snacks things like yogurts, raw nuts and seeds, fruit
7. Eat a good portion of your food raw-uncooked
8. Drink a lot of water
9. Simply eat less-smaller portions
10. Make an effort to get active and stay active for all of your life
**healthy animals in their natural environment, fed their natural diet, e.g. A cow, freely roaming all day eating grass and not treated with hormones or antibiotics.
The dreaded witches hat (Part 3)
The ankle is now pretty sore but well over half way nothing is going to stop me yet I am now limping and can’t seem to put much pressure on the ankle. I see a sign but as I approach I run through a sprinkler that has been placed to douse us with water by a friendly householder along the race route. It is beautiful to feel the spray on my face until I realize that my glasses have fogged up. Who cares the water was fantastic as it is so hot.
I see a sign – it is what I think is the 9 km mark. One km to go I take off – sore foot and all – I am going to finish and as I look at my watch the time is really fast. The pace increased, the pain in the ankle increased but I am loving this race. I want to finish with nothing left.
Then I see it – the 8 km mark sign. As the half marathon is run at the same time as 10 km I must have seen the 19 km marker and because of the fogged up glasses I only saw the 9 and not the 19.
I have just sprinted nearly a kilometre – out of breath, sweat pouring out of me, dying to go to the toilet and gradually increasing pain in the ankle I still have two km left. This is a race to remember.
My thoughts at this point are centred on ‘just finishing’. I see the athletic track and the finish. My family are there as I enter the oval – they are cheering but later tell me I looked ‘awful’. To be honest I felt awful. A runner that I had been behind all race was just ahead of me. If only I could pass – I put everything I had into the last 400 meters. Fifty meters to go and I pass that runner. I limp/run through the timing gate – someone runs to me and swipes my bib to record my time. Later I find out it is 51.30 minutes for the ten km. I wanted to get under 50 minutes. My body aches, my ankle is killing me, I am struggling for breath but the feeling of finishing is indescribable – racing is in my blood. I love it!
I walk around – my family comes and they are so proud of me. I had finished albeit with a limp but I finished. I didn’t stop – I actually finished. As I cooled down the pain in my ankle increased to biblical proportions to the point where I could hardly walk but I had finished.
That day I learnt a lesson that I think about every day. I had finished the race – not just started but finished. I had finished not running as fast as at the start of the race but with a limp but I had finished. That day I realized that many injuries are obtained through the journey of life but keep going. Jacob the Old Testament patriarch at the end of his life leaned on a staff still suffering the effects of the battle with the angel all those years before but he finished well although limping.
It is OK to limp to the finish rather than not finish the race that was set before you to run. God is beside you every moment of your life race – he loves you even with the limp. In fact I think God is attracted to those who carry a limp but finish anyway.
The postscript – serious injury to the ankle – the dreaded witches hat had taken it’s toll – five weeks now and haven’t been able to run. Perhaps next week – then training for my next race AND I can’t wait!
The dreaded witches hat (Part 2)
As the race pack thins the runners seem to be a little friendlier – well at least on the outside because I was to have my first experience at a drink station. Now why I need a drink is beyond me really because I run 10 km in training sometimes and no drink required plus there is the little matter that I really do need a toilet stop but just the sight of a drink station attracts me like a moth to a light. I just can’t help myself.
I am on the right hand side of the track and the drink station is on the other side. I attempt to move towards it but no one moves out of the way – in fact people make no attempt to allow me to move left. I attempt to indicate with my hand as a cyclist might do turning a corner but that is met with comments that are unprintable in this blog or to be honest unprintable anywhere. I miss the first drink station.
Lesson learnt – run to the left side of the road for the next drink station so that is what I do. Slowly but surely I move to the left and two km later I see the next drink station. Again why I need a drink is beyond me really but perhaps no blood is flowing to the brain and I am not thinking that well – who knows but I just have to get a drink.
I get to the station, a person attempts to hand me a plastic cup but I miss her hand. I reach for a cup on the table and get one. By the time I get it in my hand it is only half full but as I attempt to drink another competitor bumps me and there goes the drink. There must be an easier way.
At the six km mark I am over half way – my ankle is sore but not too bad. Then I remember the gel. This is the famous ‘during the race’ gel. The one that you take and it boosts your performance, gives you energy and kicks you to the finish. I get it from my running belt – I must take it, well that’s what I think! I rip the top off then realize it is a gooey thick substance like toothpaste. I attempt to squeeze it into my mouth. It is so thick I immediately gag on it. Here I am running – gagging, can’t breath, coughing and choking all at the same time then I see another drink station. This is just unbelievable – I may be the only runner in history that choked during a race.
This time I grab the cup from the helper – a quarter left in it but enough to wash my mouth and unstick the roof of my mouth from my tongue due to the goo.
Breathe – breathe – I must start breathing again as during all this I have forgotten to breathe. I have learnt heaps during this race but the biggest lesson of all is yet to be learnt.
Tomorrow the final two kilometres, the finish AND the greatest lesson learnt!
The dreaded witches hat!
I couldn’t sleep the night before – I was slightly excited to say the least. The day had finally arrived. Race day – a 10 km twilight run – my first real competitive race. Before I had been in a 5 km run and giggle affair but this was the real deal. My training regime had been tough following a definite coaching routine – up early pounding the roads sometimes before light but loving every minute of it.
The last few days had been challenging as I was carrying a number of niggling injuries. However as those who trained with me said, “All runners carry a few niggles”.
Like a cat on a hot tin roof – I arrived at the track for the start of the race. First lesson learnt – go to the toilet at a service station up the road as the line ups to the portable toilets were long, really long and when you get to the front of the queue 50 runners behind you moving from one leg to the other doesn’t help your concentration I can tell you. So I leave the waiting line!
Then it dawned on me – there were some serious runners here – in fact 2500 serious runners. The call to the start – now I wish I had persevered in the toilet line. I smiled at the people around me – none really smiled back – they pushed me however. Second lesson – position at the start of the race is everything. You have no friends at the start line. The gun goes off – well not really a gun but a dull roar. No one moves – you sort of edge forward. The reason is clear. All 2500 runners have to go through a timing gate only as wide as the 8 lane athletic track reduced to only 6 lanes. Past the gate everyone takes off – the pace is sprint pace – no slowing down you are just caught up in the pack. Then the person in front of me stops dead. I crash into her and the person behind me hits me – it is complete and utter chaos. We have to go through a small gate the width of a driveway to leave the track and go to the road – 2500 through this small opening. People are falling – I think ‘this is bad’. Then we take off again at sprint pace.
The pushing and shoving gets worse – THEN it happened. 500 meters into the 10 km race in a very crowded pack something happens in front of me. People are going everywhere – it appears someone has tripped over one of the ‘witches hats’ along the course. The man in front jumps over the hat now lying sideways on the ground but too late for me – I hit it full on. I lose my footing and my right foot takes a huge hit as it takes my full weight as I try not to fall.
There is immediate pain in my right ankle but it seems alright. Adrenaline and the fact that I am warmed up plus the fact that I have trained hard for this race dulls the discomfort. No thought of stopping as I regather my stride and I am off. Nine and a half kilometres to go and now after 2 km I have run at 4.15 min per km pace – this is bad, really bad as I have trained to run at 5 min per km pace – this is too fast but the pack just pushes you as there is no room to slow down. Yet gradually the pack thins and my pace slows to what I think is about right. Ankle sore but I am running my first race and this is really fantastic.
What happens next is the subject of tomorrows blog!
Guest Blogger – Romey Ritter
CAN A THOUGHT GIVE YOU HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE?
There are a shocking number of adults who have chronic high blood pressure (BP). Anyone can have an isolated high blood pressure reading during a visit to the doctor. You sit in a cold sterile office with something strapped to your arm with a man you see maybe once a year and he’s telling you to relax. Already you feel hot and your BP has jumped a few points.
I am not talking about this, I am talking about consistent high readings that would give a diagnosis of hypertension.
Many of us know about diet and exercise-related life adjustments that lower BP. Few understand that BP is also affected by our thinking. The brain/body connection is very strong and our thought life can affect our BP.
We all face stress and manage it in different ways. Some see stress as a new opportunity to grow while, for others, stress reinforces negative thinking that is birthed in an internal world of fear, worry, insecurity, feelings of being overwhelmed by life. We then perceive people and situations as potential threats, fear becomes distorted, and leads to negative wrong thinking.
Have you ever heard of our fight or flight response? It’s our ability to respond to extreme danger. Our bodies instantly mount a well-coordinated and powerful response putting us in a high alert state–ready to “fight or flee”. This response originates in the brain and extends to the rest of the body, causing thousands of chemical and physical reactions, one of which is a significant rise in blood pressure. It’s an extreme response to a dangerous threat. It is what allows a mom to lift a 1 ton car off her toddler in an accident or enables us to move at light speed away from danger. It is a God-given lifesaving response.
This lifesaving response was intended for extreme situations but often appears alongside habitual negative thinking and causes problems for our BP. When we allow ourselves to entertain negative thoughts, they are reinforced in our brain. Our brain creates neural pathways that get stronger and faster every time we entertain the same thought. As we think negative thoughts our brain more easily and frequently goes into high alert.
Have you ever overreacted to even the slightest comment, been overly harsh with one of your kids for no good reason, or maybe become overly anxious waiting at a red stop light? That’s the neural pathway at work.
It’s these moments that push our brain into high alert that we have an accompanied high blood pressure as our body responds to the brain’s call to action. Chronic bad thinking sets our brain to high alert for extended periods of time which contributes to chronic high blood pressure.
There is a growing understanding of this phenomenon in the neuroscience world. There are ways to actually retrain your brain, change your negative thoughts, practice positive thoughts, and even create new neural pathways.
This is so amazing; God has been telling us for thousands of years: renew our minds, capture negative thoughts, get God’s perspective on life and to meditate on his word. He has known all along that our thinking affects so much of life. Our faith life, our prayer life, our relationship with him and with others, our work and education, even our health is affected by the way we think. He has given us the tool to renew our minds, His Word.
