Show Me a Sign

Most road signs are straightforward. They tell you what to do, which direction to go in, where you are etc. But occasionally (and usually unintentionally) road signs can be very funny.


“Litter and it will Hurt”
- Washington State road sign.

“Over the Limit Under Arrest”
- Oregon State road sign.


“Breakaheart Road”
- Nevada State street name.


“That Bull Moose Might Be A Cow’s Beau So Drive Carefully”
- Jackson Hole, Wyoming road sign.


“Attention Dog Guardians - Pick up after your dogs. Thank you.
Attention Dogs - Grrrrr, bark, woof, good dog.” 
- District of North Vancouver Road Sign.


Body signs are not so straightforward, neither are they funny. Acute sport injuries are often obvious and occur in a dramatic fashion but other injuries can creep up slowly and get progressively worse. These often turn into nagging chronic aches and pains which if ignored, can cause serious damage or a long-term problem which is exactly what happened to me. After 11 months of running, I’m now depressingly sidelined with a serious injury. I didn’t even make it to the one-year mark!

It all began back in mid-July while running with what I self-diagnosed as mild Achilles-tendonitis, a result of my latest summer fling with a new pair of runners. It started as a niggling pain in my left Achilles which never completely went away. Some days my Achilles was so fat and red-raw during a run that I could barely walk the next day. So why did I continue to run? I wasn’t crippled or anything after each run. I could walk with a limp and ride my bike, but clearly my sore ankle was telling me: No, don’t run on me--that would be a very bad idea. Still I did not heed the signs and now instead of running and kicking a ball around a soccer field, I am kicking myself after tearing my obviously irritated and weakened Achilles in the first soccer game of the season last Sunday.


Pain is the body's way of identifying an injury and wrenching you away from the stressor to protect you from further harm. To run through it is overriding your body's natural instincts to protect itself, which isn't smart. Pain is injury, plain and simple.

Things change dramatically when you can't run. Stuff comes into sharper focus. And you quickly realize that being able to run healthy is way more important than anything else.


Traditionally, injury prevention focuses on the physical steps you can take to prevent injuries such as stretching, cross-training, massage, rest days, that sort of thing. These are all fine as far as they go, but in a sense they're like the crew of the Titanic focusing on the tip of the iceberg, when the real problem is down deep. Many injuries--perhaps most of them--begin "down deep" in our psyches. Often we get injured because we disregard the warning signs. We try to run through pain. We throw caution to the wind.


In my case, my injury could have been prevented long before it happened. I think all it would have taken was a little willpower. But that willpower is tricky because it flies in the face of many things that I’ve learned from running--to keep at it, to ignore pain, to push through adversity.


Denial is one of the toughest things for runners to recognize because the very nature of the sport rewards us for disregarding pain, sometimes real pain. A smart runner will back off, rest for several days and maybe cross-train. But the runner in denial (ME!) keeps pushing until he or she gets injured.


Related to denial is the ability to differentiate between benign pain and the pain that signals imminent injury. We've all had to deal with a side stitch or sore legs at the end of a long run, but being able to distinguish that kind of pain from the more serious kind of pain is a little trickier. How do you do that? By training your mind to listen to your body. By weighing the options. Considering the consequences. Thinking ahead. This I will do from now on because I’m finally serious about staying injury-free. It won't always be an easy task, but the reward--enjoyable, pain-free running--will definitely be worth the effort.


Is there an injury upside? I think so. I’ve definitely learned an important lesson which is listening to my body and heeding the signs of when to call it a day. The body has a threshold for how much exertion it can handle and I overestimated that threshold and ran through the pain. Foot and ankle care can easily be compared to the foundation of a house: a house without a strong foundation is likely to crumble. I am now more conscious of my limits, of which there are many, and hopefully I will become more in tune with my body, particularly my trouble spots. In the meantime, I am anxiously waiting on a green light.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?