Berlin 2016, or my stupid DNF story
Berlin Marathon will forever remain special to me because I had my best and worst races there. I came close to running my best and ruining my running life in this particular race. This writing is about the worst race.
I run Berlin in 2015 and missed Boston qualification by the skin of my teeth. At 43, I needed a 3:10:00. Somehow the readings in my GPS and my official time did not match and I ended up running a pretty comfortable finish home run. I don’t blame my watch, and I was not too unhappy with the result either. I needed a reason to rerun Berlin and just like that, I decided to run again in 2016 with great ambitions.
For a year, I trained with a nothing but Berlin on my mind and did everything by the book. I lost an additional two kilos to achieve 78, focused on intervals and did more speed-work. Things went well for a time. To clock 3:10:00 in a marathon, I needed an average 4:30 pace – impossibly difficult for a runner like myself.
I trained with specific focus on my tempos from May to August, running 235-341-415-381 kms per month respectively. I did my long runs at 4:50-5:00 min/km range and my intervals not faster than 4:00 min/km. My mileage was reasonable because my last 18-month average was already 235 kms. I was particularly careful with speed-work. My priority was getting to the Start, not getting a BQ at all costs.
My final long run was on 3rd of September- 30 kms at 5:04 min/km. During this run, I started feeling an indefinite pain in my right hamstring, for the first time in a year. It was a familiar pain- the kind that comes and goes away. I’ve had herniated disks since my twenties and always has short bouts of pain, so I did not take it very seriously. I did not want to. With typical blindness of the addicted, I followed my plan. My last long run was 20 kms at 4:50 min/km on 11th of September. The pain became more pronounced. Yet, I was very sure that it would “magically go away”. Quitting was not an option.
At this point in the story, I should give myself some credit. When I talked about the pain, a couple of my buddies scared me shitless about their injury stories. I just could not ignore a persistent pain and push for PB. So, I did exactly what any responsible runner would do- I consulted with my doctor.
My physician, a very experienced 78 old PT veteran with a world of experience, knew everything about my physical condition and injury history for the last 10 years. He understood perfectly just how important that race was to me. He trusted physical examination far more than MR or X-ray scans and took a long 20 minutes checking the sense in my toes, my reflexes, flexibility. His verdict: the pain was not something simple like a temporarily bulging disk or pinching nerve. I was tired and my bones were stressed due to overuse. He warned me that running a race in my “very tired” state would be possible but extremely risky. Anything could snap. It was not worth the risk.
Comfortably ignoring his advice , I consulted with another physician just to “make sure”. This second doctor, a runner himself, was more sympathetic and accommodating. He was pretty sure that I only had a minor rupture in my left buttock and if I did not mind the pain, I could run with some painkillers. This was far from ideal but if I really, really wanted to run this damned race after putting in all those miles, I could give it a try. He prescribed me an inject-able painkiller, advised me to use it only if the pain was unbearable.
On 18th September, a week before the race, I did a final trial 17 kms at 4:50 min/km with some pain deep in my right thigh. The pain was roaming, constant but perfectly bearable. OK, I thought. No more speed runs till the race and things should be OK after a full week of rest.
But I did not rest. I had to travel to Munich to join a conference. Beautiful Munich in September and sunny afternoons. I ended up slipping my shoes on and running a couple times.
Finally, the day before the race, I hopped on to my plane from Istanbul and joined my friends in Berlin. The pain came back sharply during the flight and did not go away until the night, keeping me awake until very late hours.
On the next morning, without thinking too much about the significance or possible consequences, I injected myself with two doses of painkillers on pain areas. That is not fun at all. Don’t ever try it. I kept saying myself that this is not cheating because taking a painkiller is not like using a performance enhancing drug. I am not sure if this is entirely true. There is some information on the web rationalising the use of mild painkillers during training and race. If you read only partially and from a single perspective, you can find enough data to fool yourself.
In a couple of minutes, I started feeling better, but the pain did not go away. I pinched my toe and it felt number. So that was it . I would be OK. I also smashed “Nothing new on the race day” rule and put on my brand new blue running shoes. Once you are on the dark side, breaking rules becomes easier.
I was limping mildly as we walked to the changing area, but It was too late to go back. Berlin Marathon is a beautiful, beautiful race. Once you find yourself at the start with the other runners, I told myself, the rest is easy, the race carries you away.
Just before the start, I remember the drone hovering above, last minute jokes, the excitement and yes, the pain. Here I was, after two years of training. Perhaps that was all that mattered. Maybe I could just “walk” it? Be safe. Curse your luck try next year. But, would there be a next year? No, I would not be happy just taking it easy. What the hell I thought. I did not came this far being safe.
The gun went off and with crowd cheering, we started running with training buddy Tugber. Our plan was to run together until Km 20 then split. Berlin is a crowded race in the early phases; we struggled to keep an even pace. At one point around 5 Km, he fell over and it took us a few weird seconds to get him back on his feet and regain our tempo. After 5 Km mark, my pain started increasing constantly. At 10 Km, my agony was finally “unbearable”. The ground under my feet felt different, my focus was not on running but keeping the pain down. My heartbeat was a good 5-10 higher and my breathing a mess. I decided to run through it- If I could see past 15 K, maybe things would improve. It did not.
I stopped and shouted Tugber that I am out. You go. I will be here. He shouted back that we are not supposed to split until 20. No, I said. I am not slowing down. I quit. I just can’t run anymore.
Riding S-Bahn train during a race with running shorts and a chest number puts you in a suspicious place. I had to explain to a suspicious senior guy with glasses that I actually quit the race and not trying to take a shortcut. Defeat feels very heavy. I headed back to the hotel, took a shower, had a alkoholfreies Bier with some more painkillers and took the train to Brandenburg to meet Tugber at the finish line. Barely able to stand on my right, I was officially “injured”. At last, I had some clarity about that.
A week after the race, it took me 2 MRI scans and a full week in the hospital to figure out what went wrong. There was a deep hairline fracture in my pelvic bone which caused inflammation, suffocating sciatic nerves. The disk between L4-L5 was ruptured. Another disk, L5-S1 was also flat as paper. Very hard to describe in plain English, harder to believe even after seeing the hairline in the scans. Defeated, I headed back to my old Dr. Narman who scolded me for a good hour after examining me. I confessed all the gory details of my stupid adventure. I could not stand straight due to pain, had 20-30% sensory loss under my right sole, more in right toe.
I owe a lot to this man for focusing on the medical solution and not my behaviour. I hopelessly asked the awful question: Will I ever be able to run a race again? Because I’ve read somewhere that damaged disks never heal and sciatica is forever. Behind his glasses, he replied, yes, of course you will heal. Despite what some people say, everything heals.
What did I learn from this? A few things.
- The primary goal of training is to stay injury free so you can continue training says Fellrnr. I learned that the hard way and now I agree with every letter of this sentence.
- Trying to speed up recovery often complicates things and has the opposite effect. Recovery takes time, there is no way around it. My recovery journey perhaps calls for another post. After this injury, I could not run for 4 full months.
- The statement “He run too much, too soon and got an injury” is often not true. It is very difficult to find the root cause of a problem and such linear thinking can me misleading. “Increasing mileage” is easy to blame because it is what you focus on. Your problem can be shortened hamstrings due to sitting too much, lack of strength training or life stress. Besides, thinking too much about the root cause of your injury is another source of stress. Just letting go and getting some rest can be the real solution.
- I took to swimming and yoga. I hate swimming, but basic yoga and stretch exercises became a part of my life after this incident.
- As most things in life, the speed and quality of recovery depends on your attitude. I started getting better only after accepting the recovery journey. Keeping positive changes, a lot of things.
- In the following months, left with an awful free time, I discovered Game of Thrones, made a lot of non-running friends, started biking, discovered new books and learned WordPress. It is difficult to admit but there might be more to life than just running.
- When preparing for something special, it makes sense to listen to a professional coach. If you train without a third eye on your progress, it is very easy to cross boundaries and push too hard
- It has been 4 years since this event. I consider myself very luck to get away with no permanent damage. Now I am 46 and I need only a 3:20 to qualify Boston. God knows when the next Boston will be possible due to pandemic. Besides, I am not sure if I really want to fly half the way around the world to run a race these days, but I am still hopeful that one day I will run a very slow and enjoyable Boston Marathon.
