Health & Running Go Hand-in-Hand
At the end of my freshman year of high school cross county, my times started dwindling. I was our 8th runner fighting for that 7th spot for states but, I had let my coach down at regionals. I ended up 9th spot, unable to even go to states as an alternate. As soon as I stopped running, I realized that I wasn’t doing well at all. I could barely walk ten feet without having to stop, catch my breath, and gain my vision back. After a month of this, I went to the doctors who furthered me to the cardiologist.
They discovered something unknown had caused my tricuspid valve in my heart to not function properly, this led to experimenting with different types of pills for months and interfering with my outdoor track season, barely being able to run a mile with out passing out.
While approaching my sophomore year, they had started to figure out what had been working and what hadn’t. Although I had a pretty decent season of PRs I was still worried. Come along sophomore outdoor track season, I couldn’t make it through a simple hurdle race without falling or dropping at the end. I had then also discovered by doctors at University of Michigan that I had unusual ball and socket joints within both of my hips, being told I should not run hurdles for the rest of my high school years as it would cause more problems in my future.
Junior year cross country was just about to begin and I had little confidence for the season with heavy amount of anxiety weighing down on me. Knowing I was not in good health at all, and my coach not believing it would affect my running. My whole season had been spent taking my pills hoping it would help my heart, throwing up the little food I had in my stomach, passing out mid-race and immense chest pains. I would just break down in the middle of a 7 mile run and cry on the side of the road, lost with what to do for my health causing me to barely be even run at a near jogging pace. My coaches started noticing my struggles with eating and my heart but they had just lectured me of how I was letting down my team nonetheless rather than offering help. They just believed it was all in my head and I could just wish away the pain. Mind over Body is all they’d tell me.
Health is a major key within running and I had learned very quickly that you can put yourself through large amounts of suffering throughout a season without proper care for yourself. I don’t want other runners going through struggles with health like this or worse, because I am still struggling to this day with my heart being damaged & struggling fixing it and being unable to eat. Cross country is my absolute passion but if your health is poor, your performance will be poor.
Coach Bowerman had said that running is about testing the limits of the human heart, but when you test the limits of the human heart, make sure you set those boundaries and limits so you do not cross them.
- Anonymous
