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Lane 3: Commentary<br />
Deconditioning<br />
by EJN<br />
Rest periods, tapering, work/family<br />
responsibilities and even a minor injury<br />
all provide a break in a runner’s<br />
routine (wanted or not). As much as<br />
the runner may fear that he has lost his<br />
edge, he’ll find that he normally gets<br />
back to peak shape pretty quickly if<br />
the break isn’t for too long. Deconditioning<br />
is a whole different beast, my<br />
friends. It’s like the witness relocation<br />
program for runners; training partners<br />
and teammates thought it was just a<br />
calf injury but now nobody has seen<br />
or heard from you in months. It’s just<br />
part of the risks associated with our<br />
sport and unfortunately sometimes<br />
shit does happen. It could be either a<br />
catastrophic injury or a relentlessly<br />
nagging malady that seems to defy<br />
diagnosis but the dreaded result is the<br />
same. Sound the alarms, awake the<br />
elders, and start rationing the canned<br />
goods: I’ve just entered the apocalyptic<br />
deconditioning zone.<br />
For those out there not intimately familiar<br />
with Deconditioning, here’s a<br />
quick tutorial. There are three stages:<br />
Mad Max, The Road Warrior, and Beyond<br />
Thunderdome. There are fairly<br />
clear symptoms associated with each<br />
step that can help you figure out how<br />
far along you are.<br />
The Mad Max stage (< 2 months) is not<br />
bad by itself because in this stage<br />
there’s still hope for the world and if<br />
you can get out of it quickly then it’s<br />
no big deal. Obstacles are presented,<br />
but they are manageable unless you<br />
don’t get control because then the<br />
problems will run you down like a<br />
lawless motorcycle gang. Symptoms<br />
are more subtle here: despite your<br />
grief you still dress normally, attend<br />
races as a spectator, and even continue<br />
to eat right and take the stairs<br />
when you can just because you’re still<br />
that active person at heart.<br />
In The Road Warrior stage (2-4<br />
months) the grief boils over to frustration<br />
and sorrow turns to despair. You<br />
quickly realize the world is looking<br />
bleak when the injury takes the form<br />
of The Humungus, you find yourself<br />
eating dog food and squabbling over<br />
the last of the gas. Symptoms here:<br />
instead of jeans you’ll find yourself<br />
inexplicably wearing ill-fitting sweats<br />
more and more, trips up the stairs turn<br />
into escalator rides and then frozen<br />
foods and beer slowly start to dominate<br />
the diet.<br />
Beyond Thunderdome stage (>4<br />
Break a deal,<br />
Spin the wheel.<br />
months) can be classified as either<br />
acceptance or also flat out giving up.<br />
After your wheels are stolen, you find<br />
yourself in Bartertown and things arguably<br />
can’t be bleaker. You hope<br />
Auntie Entity can work a miracle for<br />
you because she’s your last shot. The<br />
symptoms in this situation are more<br />
like sad facts really: no effort is given<br />
to working out, you’ll gladly wait 5<br />
minutes to take the elevator up 1 floor,<br />
and you’re on a first name basis with<br />
all the drive-thru workers within a 5<br />
mile radius.<br />
Once you find yourself in Thunderdome,<br />
you realize that Deconditioning<br />
is the worst type of parasite because it<br />
attacks the body and mind. The desire<br />
to find alternate means of staying<br />
in shape slowly diminishes as it takes<br />
longer and longer to nail down a diagnosis<br />
and a firm plan of treatment.<br />
The once chiseled legs are starting to<br />
feel doughy while the once mighty<br />
lungs now wheeze for no apparent<br />
reason. The sad truth of the matter is<br />
missed workouts have a tendency of<br />
snowballing, and once the momentum<br />
shifts it’s very hard to swing it back in<br />
your favor since motivation is no<br />
doubt tough to come by now. Even as<br />
I type this I can feel my muscle fibers<br />
softening, relaxing, atrophying, weakening.<br />
After a while the light at the<br />
end of tunnel reveals itself to be a<br />
train and you find yourself crying in<br />
the dark while listening to Glory Days<br />
on a continuous loop while eating<br />
Power Bars and softly repeating to<br />
yourself, “It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.”<br />
It’s almost impossible to look at this<br />
situation without being overdramatic.<br />
Truth is, I know the world’s not going<br />
to end, I know that I will run again<br />
soon, and I know that I’ll be faster than<br />
I was before. Until I can put the shoes<br />
on and go for a run without worrying,<br />
then the world is going to end and in<br />
very dramatic fashion. After all, what<br />
is a runner that can’t run? It makes me<br />
think of Superman II, when the Man of<br />
Steel gives up his powers and is just a<br />
dork with glasses that gets his reporter<br />
ass whupped at a coffee shop by a<br />
hick. For many of us, running is not<br />
only a form of working out, but it can<br />
also be a way to help you work<br />
through your problems; it’s selftherapy.<br />
When the therapy ends up<br />
being the problem then how do you<br />
go about dealing with it?<br />
Can a runner come back from deconditioning?<br />
Odds are if you’re young<br />
you’ll come back fine and possibly<br />
even stronger. Once that age starts<br />
creeping up there the hurdles become<br />
taller and the task becomes that<br />
much more daunting. Add in a family<br />
and increased responsibility at work<br />
and then it might start to seem like the<br />
closest you’ll get to competitive running<br />
is some sort of Black Friday stampede<br />
at Best Buy.<br />
But if you find yourself in Bartertown<br />
and want to make that journey back<br />
from the brink, then for most physical<br />
Continued on page 33<br />
25
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