Hello. Meet injured runner me.
First. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever under any circumstances EVER tell an injured runner, or any runner for that matter, that running is bad and they shouldn’t do it.
A few days back I had to set someone straight about some things. Okay. I didn’t have to. I could have walked away. I did walk away. Limped away. Eventually.
I’d just run – yes it was a run, not a slog or jog or run/ walk. It was eleven miles of heaven. Fast too. For me I mean. Not Boston qualifying fast. Not place in the top half of a race fast. But fast enough to leave me feeling like my own hero. And who doesn’t want to be that?
Granted, I can’t take full credit for this, my best run in years. I ran it with the help of an anti-gravity treadmill.
I am an injured runner with a hugely important, once-in-a-lifetime-I-kid-you-not event on the horizon. I need to be faster than my usual slow. I need to actually train. I need all my body parts to work.
Step by step, I’ve been working at getting faster. Also step by step I’ve been developing an injury. I’m at that point where I’ve tried all the things: rest, ice, compression, elevation, Advil, stretching, cross training, complaining.
I’m at the bring in the big guns so I can keep training point. Found an Alter G and found a physical therapist.
Finding the Alter G was easy.
The PT part? Complicated.
I live in a constant state of Iowachusetts. Iowachusetts is what happens when your kids live in two particular, vastly different locations and you can’t stand being away from either of them for too long.
There are insurance issues regarding who I can see where. My insurance only works in the state of the dropped R. My PT appointment there is soon but not as soon as I want.
Ugh. No one ever said it would be easy. Or worth it. Or asked if I wanted fries with that. Don’t you hate when you know what you need and paperwork gets in the way of you getting it? Why can’t people just give me what I need when I need it?
So. After my eleven-mile fantasy run, awash in endorphins and renewed hope, I stopped into an Iowan orthopedic urgent care place, ready to pay out of pocket to get a diagnosis so that I could immediately start getting care for my heel that needs to heal.
First thing out of the medical person’s mouth as I followed his blue clothed body down the corridor to the exam room was not “how are you,” or “my name is,” or “what do you think of the weather.” You know, normal pleasantries that you’d expect given the circumstances. This person’s first words were, “Oh you’re a runner. You know you need to stop that.” He laughed.
Okay so I laughed politely for a half second, but thought, “what a jerk.” His next words – we’re still walking down a corridor: “Let’s get you to x-ray.” I reminded? explained to him that, as it said on the paperwork he was holding, I was paying out of pocket and politely (barely) asked what that would cost and above all else how the heck did he know that I even needed an x-ray. He shrugged and said the x- ray was procedure, and he’d ask the doctor about cost and necessity. That’s how I found out this blue guy wasn’t the doctor.
Still have no idea what his job was, other than to rub me the wrong way, because as soon as he left the room to get that info, I bolted to the front desk and said I wanted my money back. “Said” here means demanded.
The reason (s): Fifty years a runner. Twenty-five years in and out of physical and other kinds of therapy. I’m an educated consumer. At least look at my foot first, flexibility, movement, etc. before asking me to spend another couple of hundred or more out of pocket.
Blue guy comes out and asks why I’m leaving.
I could have repeated what I told the desk person. But why would I do that?
Me: Let me give you some advice. Never EVER tell a marathoner to stop running.
Him, laughing. Laughing!!! “I was just joking.”
Oh yeah. He went there. He was just joking.
Think I blacked out from rage at that point. Think I barked out some choice words before limping out of that clinic in a self-righteous huff, the most satisfying of the huffs.
On the Alter G yesterday, someone came up to me and asked what I was doing and why. I told her about my injury and my upcoming race. That’s the answer to the doing part. When I figure out the actual why, maybe someday I’ll tell someone. Until then: Why not?
