THE RUNNER’S
WHEN I THINK OF GOALS FOR THE NEW YEAR, not getting injured feels less than inspiring, a goal defined by the absence of something. I’d prefer to set positive, motivational targets: Run more, run faster, set PRs, conquer new challenges. Yet staying healthy is critical to achieving any other objectives as a runner. By ignoring injury prevention, we too often end up with interrupted training plans and large setbacks in fitness. Or worse, we can’t run for weeks or months and miss getting to the starting lines of our planned events. Advice on avoiding injury usually starts with not doing too much. (It is, in fact, the first point in Richard A. Lovett’s injury-prevention primer starting on page 23.) But this is, again, a negative proposition. Sure, we can reduce injury by not pushing it, but we want to do more. The whole idea of training and racing is to blow past boundaries. To reconcile this conflict, we need to see injury prevention not as avoidance but as an integral part of our training. Let’s focus on what we can do to make ourselves ready for the challenges of our goals rather than scaling our aspirations—and our running— to our limited capabilities. Timing is everything. Yes, we get injured by doing
WHEN I THINK OF GOALS FOR THE NEW YEAR,
not getting injured feels less than inspiring,
a goal defined by the absence of something.
I’d prefer to set positive, motivational targets:
Run more, run faster, set PRs, conquer
new challenges. Yet staying healthy is critical
to achieving any other objectives as a
runner. By ignoring injury prevention, we
too often end up with interrupted training
plans and large setbacks in fitness. Or
worse, we can’t run for weeks or months
and miss getting to the starting lines of our
planned events.
Advice on avoiding injury usually starts
with not doing too much. (It is, in fact, the
first point in Richard A. Lovett’s injury-prevention
primer starting on page 23.) But this
is, again, a negative proposition. Sure, we
can reduce injury by not pushing it, but we
want to do more. The whole idea of training
and racing is to blow past boundaries.
To reconcile this conflict, we need to see
injury prevention not as avoidance but as
an integral part of our training. Let’s focus
on what we can do to make ourselves ready
for the challenges of our goals rather than
scaling our aspirations—and our running—
to our limited capabilities. Timing
is everything. Yes, we get injured by doing
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