Runner's High? Not me.

I’ve been accused of being an “endurance athlete” in recent years.  It has a lot to do with the length of some of my bike rides.  Appearances can be deceiving.  I am anything but an endurance athlete.

Back when I used to jog for exercise, it was obvious that I wasn’t a runner.  A bit thicker then, one look at my body and my running and you just knew that running was not my sport.

That “runner’s high” that runners talk about?  Never found that creature.  It didn’t exist as far as I was concerned.  Running was misery from the first step to the last.

But I did it anyway.  It was cheap and easy.  A decent pair of running shoes and out the door you go.  It didn’t matter what clothes you wore although I did have a pair of those embarrassingly short running shorts that runners used to wear.  Thank goodness that no photos survived that era.

No, any semblance of an endurance athlete that you might assume about me is just a façade.  I do pretty good because I am fully dedicated to the biking and because I work hard at it, but start up a hill and I get dropped (what bikers do when they can’t keep up) in a hurry.

My body, my lung capacity, my muscles, my heart…they just weren’t built for it.  But since I enjoy the sport so much, persist I will.

As far as runners are concerned, I think there are two kinds.  Those that are naturals at it, that take great joy in going out for a run and those that aren’t naturals but overcome lack of natural talent with hard work.

From a sports medicine standpoint, I see two different categories as well, lining up with the type of runner they are.  The naturals, those that have a real talent for running, seem to get little problems or stress fractures.  A lot of the time it is just from overtraining.

Too much mileage.  Too many hills.  If I can run 10 miles, then let’s run 20 miles.  That sort of thing.  The breakdowns that they experience are most often simple with clear solutions.

I’ve had some really great runners that put in a ton of miles running that have simple breakdowns.  Most of the time I put them on a treadmill, running barefoot, and videotaping their running gait.  Slow motion often reveals really subtle abnormalities that often have a simple, subtle fix. 

Those non-naturals, those that run but it always seems hard for them, often have bigger breakdowns which can be anywhere.   And they’re sometimes hard to fix.  I think part of that is that they are used to running in pain so they run through a lot of injuries that might otherwise be normal but by persisting, they make them into big problems.

Big problems at the knee.  Big problems at the hip.  Big problems at the low back.  And then there are the feet.  They often have huge problems at the foot.  Maybe flat footed.  Maybe a huge arch.  Maybe they are a pronator.

And just maybe that’s why running doesn’t come easy for them. 

I make a lot of orthotics for runners.  Those elite runners can often benefit from orthotics but I am careful not to make huge changes in the way that their foot hits the ground.  That is often why they are an elite runner in the first place.

Those non-natural runners can very often benefit from orthotics as well but I’m not afraid of big changes through the orthotics on them.   Many times, I have had one of those average runners—a runner who might not take great joy in running but who is running for their health—and given them back their running.

They may have stopped running altogether because their body just couldn’t take it anymore.  Sometimes treating the origins of their problem gets them back to running.

So, which runner are you?