Resurrected Runners
A recovery and training plan for biomechanically burned-out boomers
By Roy Benson
As featured in the December 2003 issue of Running Times Magazine
As a coach of many veteran runners, I often have to be a locker room lawyer. Real lawyers label what I have to do as "taking the jury down the primrose path." It means bringing them to an inescapable conclusion. In my case, it often means jogging those vets, with 20-30 years of wear and tear on their legs, down the path to where they admit that they need to change their training patterns. These changes are necessary for those runners who no longer are setting PRs but want to stay competitive. They are particularly necessary for those who have reached the point of simply wanting to continue non-competitive running. The inescapable conclusion at the end of the primrose path involves changing either how often they run, or how hard they run, or how long they run. Step One: Acceptance
I know the way down that primrose path, because I had to follow it myself. I am one of the Biomechanically Burned-Out Boomers (BmBOBers), the walking wounded serving as textbook cases of every running related injury ever diagnosed. It may have taken us vets 20-25 years or more of hammering away at workouts and races, but eventually the mileage embedded in our legs reached a critical total. At that point, maintaining consistent training became all but impossible. Performances got embarrassingly slower than our PRs from the old glory days. Our form started looking lousy with weak, tight, little pitter-patter strides.
As Exhibit A of this syndrome, let me admit this: it ain’t easy to keep a heart young while relying on old legs. If it sounds like I’m exaggerating a bit too much, believe me I’m not. I had a fellow coach video tape me as I ran my 100 meter strides a few years ago, and, ouch, it was painful to watch. I was running repeat 100s in the low 20-second range and they felt just as fast as they did 40 years ago when I could do them in 12+ seconds. With one look at that tape, my self- image aged 40 years. The runner in my mind’s eye went from young, good looking and fast to old, ugly and, even worse, slow. I kept asking myself, "How could anyone running 5:20 mile pace, look so slow? Who is that weak, tight, old geezer wobbling down the track?"