About a year ago, I had a revelation to share with my then coach, Brett Hornig.
My three big goal races for 2024 would be…
- Gorge Waterfalls 50K
- Quebec Mega Trail 50K
- Squamish – National Championships – 50K
I added additional races to the calendar in the form of Bromont and Sulphur Springs. But these three would remain the big burritos for the year. Sulphur a taco by comparison, clearly.
Secretly (until taking to Instagram), Quebec was actually the one I wanted to prioritize the most, with the National Championships being a bit out of my depth in terms of competition.
That meant I only gave myself a five-week block to recover from the five-hour long-haul at QMT, in the midst of the most stressful time at my work.
I came out of my trip to Quebec with a Mase styled bad bad bad boy bruise in my quad. It was fine in the end, but I got sick immediately after, and working through a ton of stress from work, I then injured my foot. As what tends to happen, I overcompensated on the next few runs, and gave myself an even worse injury down the other side.
Physio T doesn’t really know what it might be, but thinks it’s likely a knee bursitis. Either way, three weeks on, I still can’t really run.
I came into Squamish unsure as to whether or not I could even spark a flame to the start-line, let alone a blaze to the finish.
My body had to work super hard to finish, and I grinded the gears until Gary Robbins tried to high-five me and I ran right past him. Awkward.
Coming off the race and all the pain everywhere else, I thought I might have fixed my knee for good. But as soon as the other pain dissipated like my melting ice cream today, the knee injury woke up and screamed “Hello” like Adele on stage.
It’s a harsh reminder that training is so much more than the actual act of training. My in-field research hypothesis is that it’s about 70% recovery from training, and 30% actual training.
If you don’t get the right…
- Sleep
- Hydration
- Nutrition
- Positive vibes
It’s so easy for random injuries to Carly Rae Jepsen a “Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. But here’s my number!”.
I keep deleting the numbers, but they always find a way back.
Over the summer, I simply let myself get too stressed. It wasn’t even until I got my foot injury that I shifted my mindsets, simply by telling myself that I couldn’t afford to get injured.
The life of a professional athlete in this sport is often one where you can devote most of the day to training and recovering. It’s not a life I want, because there are so many other facets of life that I want to dedicate my talents toward.
But if you have a full-time job and know that it’s going to take away from training and recovery, you need to have plans in place to adjust, and intentionality around getting enough of those four.
I didn’t take enough care of my body through the tough times this summer, and almost paid the price in not being able to race Nationals. I’m grateful that my two weeks of minimal running prior to Squamish did not drastically affect my race. I’m equally grateful that I somehow managed to grind the gears all the way to an 11th place (12th OVR) finish.
But my plans may now be disrupted as I continue recovering. That would be a particular annoyance, given that I’m taking two months off of work to train, write, read, and rediscover what I want out of life. There’s no longer an apple in my Instagram bio, I ended my time with The Blue, and I left my life behind in Cambridge. It wasn’t for the pipe-dream of turning up as a legitimate pro in the sport. But the plan was to live a minimalist (but social) life training and living in Quebec for a few months, while writing and making money off my soccer website.
Side note – I really want more ice cream.
It’s an exciting plan, so long as I can run. So as a cautionary tale to others, I wanted to reiterate how important it is to prioritize recovery and to ensure that you are getting the right…
- Sleep
- Hydration
- Nutrition
- Positive vibes
If you find yourself without even one of those four things, everything can be okay! But you may have to dial back the training and adjust your plans. Pushing through pain will only result in worse injuries, as I’ve found out for myself.
While this may seem like a more depressing article from my last few, I did however I want to conclude with a note on what hurts the most since Squamish:
- My knee (duh)…
- The fact that I couldn’t stay longer in B.C.
- Nothing else, because I am so happy with my race.
It’s important to celebrate the success stories and live in the excitement of all that went well. We are constantly hypothesizing and worrying about the future, and we often don’t do a good enough job to celebrate the positive in the present. As I’ve found, positive vibes are often the #1 injury healer.
So today, I am so grateful for what I accomplished at the Squamish 50K, having the best time racing with some of the most respectable (and respectful) athletes in Canada. Thank you as always to XACT Nutrition for fuelling my goals. Without an actual fuelling plan, I’m sure I would have never made it this far as a trail runner.
Thanks for reading and see you soon!
Rhys Desmond 