Symptoms of my ill-defined lower abdominal injury first appeared in August. Now, the Winter Solstice approaches and my Inov8 Rocklite 305s still lie fallow in the closet. In Orwellian Newspeak, this whole predicament is DoublePlusUnGood.

I feel trapped inside an uncooperative body and I’ve grown obsessed with the injury that has incarcerated me. More pointedly, I fell I’ve lost something. In my hour of desperation, I turn to the only book that can truly help the beleaguered runner make sense of it all: On Death and Dying.

Writing in 1969, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, death expert (and apparent enthusiast), introduced the groundbreaking Five Stages of Grief. Her model predicts the emotional roller coaster people typically experience when confronting the specter of death. The stages are remarkably similar to the experiences of the injured runner.

Stage 1 – Denial
Runners are world-class deniers; just like the WWE referee who won’t acknowledge that the Undertaker is pummeling John Cena with a flagrantly obvious foreign object. We won’t admit what’s in plain sight. So naturally, we push through injuries that would down a bull moose. This is done for extremely important reasons like “shaving 10 seconds off a 9.5 mile trail run” or “Winning an online mileage contest with someone from Uzbekistan.”

When confronted with an injury we can no longer ignore (like debilitating pain in the pelvic socket) we howl with melodramatic angst like the overacting Mark Hamill in The Empire Strikes Back, “That’s not true! THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!”

We refuse to accept facts, and Darth Vader predictably kicks our whiny ass.

Stage 2 – Anger
Like petulant toddlers who haven’t gotten their way, we feel that life has purposefully struck us a cruel blow. “How could this happen? I wanted to qualify for Boston.” “I was going to run a marathon up a mountain.” “Now how will I test the wind shear resistance of my new Saucony running shorts?” It’s just not fair.

Divorced from our primary means of stress relief, we runners become ill-tempered monsters. A toxic stew of displaced aggression and unseemly narcissism rule the day. It’s best to avoid us entirely, especially if we’re related to you.

Stage 3 – Bargaining
Injuries can help runners regain lost faith, though the recovery may be shallow. The temptation to mold divine providence to our purposes proves difficult to resist. Spirituality may compliment running, but offering bail-out funds to a higher power in return for a pain-free hash run hardly amounts to sound religious practice. Even if we promise something noble, like never again out-kicking a senior citizen in a marathon finishing chute, our injuries will not magically disappear.

Yet we still try to control the uncontrollable. Rather than endure the consequences for our folly, we want to buy some sort of Medieval Indulgence to get early release from Injury Purgatory. Didn’t America fight a Reformation over this or something?

Stage 4 – Depression
The sick sometimes wonder if they’ll ever be well again. Injured runners wonder if they’ll ever compete again. We sit on the sidelines as the race calendar inexorably rolls on. As days turn into weeks and weeks into months, we succumb to listless melancholy. We lose hope.

Because nothing seems to matter, self-destructive choices begin to make sense. We hop off the wellness wagon into the non-judgmental, deliciously nutritionless arms of our favorite junk foods. Complete lethargy follows. Supine on the couch, we command the nearest child to fetch us Mountain Dew and Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos because “Soda and cookies won’t just walk to the living room by themselves.”

This is rock-bottom stuff; the injured runner’s equivalent to the post break-up ice cream binge. It’s all very sad.

Stage 5 – Acceptance
With nowhere to go but forward, runners grudgingly acknowledge reality and begin the slow crawl back to dignity and fitness. The journey usually begins at the doctor’s office. We visit specialists and submit to the inevitable X-Rays and claustrophobic MRI scans. We hope this will lead to a concrete diagnosis - a clear plan of action. Any plan will do.

Alas, such certainty proves elusive. Cosmologists have deduced the precise composition of the universe at less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, but medical science can’t tell me why my groin hurts when I run. Apparently this is too much to ask.

For Kübler-Ross, acceptance is the last step before peacefully embracing death. Most runners just end up in physical therapy. There we’re measured, assessed, stretched, electrified, and put to work in the weight room. But we embrace it all the same. At least we’re doing something constructive.

It’s all quite simple. We do whatever our physical therapist tells us to do. Along the way we breathe the crisp, invigorating oxygen of a clearly defined goal, which reminds us of how it feels to run.

- Dean

In effort to keep physicians, physical therapists and makers of anti-inflamatory medication in the black, I proudly announce my latest running injury: the dreaded groin pull. It’s as uncomfortable as it sounds.

Worse, it’s completely disrupting my marathon schedule. I should be in the visceral, red meat section of my training regimen; the part where Burgess Meredith proclaims through grimy, clenched teeth that I eat lightning and crap thunder. Instead, I’ve been laid low by a deceptively nasty injury not easily described in mixed company.

Where to begin.

A groin pull is very much like a taffy pull, except you’re the taffy. Or, if you prefer vegetables; Imagine the Jolly Green Giant holds you aloft by your feet intent on slowly making a wishbone out of you. Distracted by his diminutive sidekick Sprout, he fails to finish the job. Sure, you may be alive but running is now out of the question.

One typically does not hear the word “groin” in polite conversation, unless of course you happen to know a runner. Then it’s mentioned frequently, without a hint of embarrassment.

Consider:
“Hey runner friend, what do you think of the new Asics Gel Nimbus 10?”

“The heel support is excellent fellow running aficionado, but there’s not enough cushioning to help with my groin.”

“That groin still bothering you? Provide exhaustive detail during our 10 mile training run.”

Things are different for non-runners, where references to the “groin” are uncommon. It’s a lonely word; too vulgar for high speech, and not offensive enough for low speech. The higher classes simply employ euphemisms like “nether regions” or “down there.” Lower classes proceed directly to the sterner, more colorful expletives. Neither are helpful.

Unless you’ve signed up for an Ancient Roman architecture class, you probably won’t read much about the groin, either. Even romance novelists avoid it. Why write wildly of burning groins, when burning loins will do nicely?

So we must turn to proper terminology. Medically speaking, I appear to have a strained, pulled or otherwise damaged adductor longus; one of the important muscles attaching the leg to the abdomen. Science then, has given us the ideal expression. A pulled adductor longus sounds vaguely alluring. Nobody wants a groin pull.

But if for some reason you’d like one, I suggest running incessant, high-mileage weeks with little or no breaks. When you feel the first twinge in your lower abdomen, by all means continue running, competitively if possible. In no time, you’ll be on the sidelines as your companions train in the gloriously autumnal weather.

For serious entertainment, return from the injury quickly, ignoring the sage advice of physicians, spouses, or runners with similar experience. Schedule a marathon immediately.

On that note, I hope to see you at the Lewis & Clark Siouxland Marathon on October 18th. Assuming I’m still in one piece, do flag me down at the Des Moines Marathon the next day.

- Dean

The anticlimactic, maddeningly truncated video is finally up! See below:

Ramsey,

This is the greeting you deserved some twenty-odd years ago from the Wellesley girls. It doesn’t seem fair that you never experienced it; that you never got to run Boston. My measly 3:15 doesn’t hold a candle to your 3:01. But back in the day, qualifying standards were much tougher. And regrettably, injury now prevents you from running this storied race. Doubly unfair.

This may be a trivial surrogate for the real Boston experience. But accept it as a token of friendship and thanks for the miles we’ve run together and the counsel you’ve given. I’d say thanks for the ab class, but my abs are not ready to forgive.

Most of my readers don’t know you. Though I may underestimate your social networking skills, which are prodigiously advanced. I can’t recall running together without a handful of people greeting you, whether on foot, in cars, riding, working or otherwise. Those few who don’t know you would be happier if they did.

I hope this in some small way this gesture assuages any disappointment you may have felt at missing Boston. At least let it show that investments in friendship always reap dividends.

- Dean

The Video!


(NOTE: What on earth is that runner doing at the far end of the sign in the video?)

Unfortunately, the final cut of the video contains less than half of the event. Here’s the whole encounter:

DEAN
(Stops at the craziest bunch of Wellesley Girls)
Hey! Hold this for me and…

WELLESLEY GIRLS
(Not a breath lost, they immediately unroll the sign with great enthusiasm. No reason is requested.)

DEAN
Okay, this is for Ramsey. I swear this is not me. It’s really for someone else.
(Takes several photos)

WELLESLEY GIRLS
(incoherent screaming continues)

DEAN
(Assuming the Camera is now capturing the scene on video)
On the count of three yell, “We love you Ramsey”

WELLESLEY GIRLS
(immediately)
WE LOVE YOU RAMSEY!
(more screams)

DEAN
(laughing)
Let him have it! Tell…
(Filming actually begins)
.. him you love him! YEAH!

WELLESLEY GIRLS
(more screaming)

DEAN
alright!
(filming stops)

Ah well, the best laid plans often go awry. At least we got a bit of it. Ramsey, somewhere in Wellesley, the girls have your sign. Hopefully they’ll check out the site!

- Dean