I love running but running doesn’t love me.
I have always been prone to running injuries. The most recent round of problems started during my first season of pack burro racing and consisted of a torn hamstring, posterior tibial tendonitis, and an issue with some tendon in my foot. I’ve seen physical therapists and podiatrists and even talked about these problems with my OBGYN (desperate times call for desperate measures).
My frustration had reached boiling point when I sent out a plea on Facebook. I needed a good, sports oriented physical therapist who would fix my problems and keep me running. Within ten minutes I had a message from a trusted ultrarunner friend. “Call Heather North at Red Hammer Rehab,” he said. “Just trust me on this one.”
A few days later I met Dr. North at her Louisville, Colorado, office. With muted colors and a massage table sitting prominently in the middle of the room, the place looked more like a spa than a doctor’s office. This will be nice and relaxing, I thought.
I was wrong.
During our first session Dr. North put me through some of the worst pain I have felt in my life, and I say this as someone who had a baby not too long ago. The manual massage to break up the scar tissue that was holding my hamstring hostage had me sweating and swearing. I groaned and cursed and fought the urge to curl up into the fetal position and cry.
I was in a world of hurt. And that was before the needles came out.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave or are one of the lucky folks who never gets injured, you’ve probably heard of dry needling. Dry needling practitioners use fine needles to stimulate the sore spots and promote healing. If you’re thinking that this doesn’t sound like much fun, you’re right.
I hobbled out of Dr. North’s office that first afternoon with a list of exercises to do at home (“I don’t need to watch you workout” she said) and instructions to start running more often to encourage those damaged tissues to rebuild. I spent the rest of the evening collapsed on the couch. I was tired, sore, and vaguely nauseated. I’ve never been beaten up but I imagine that the feeling would be similar. I was in rough shape.
By the next day I felt a lot better. And by the next day? I felt fine.
In one excruciating session, Dr. North undid all of the damage that another physical therapist I had been seeing hadn’t made a dent in after a dozen appointments. For the first time in many months I felt no pain during my runs. I don’t think I realized how bad off I was in until all those sore parts stopped being sore. I don’t think I realized how demoralized I was until, finally, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
These days the first thing I do when injury strikes is fire up my computer and shoot an email off to Dr. North. She has become my guru on all things injury related. I still dread the pain of our sessions but I know that in a few days I will feel a thousand times better. I am able to train harder, and worry about injuries less, because I know that I have someone in my corner who actually knows how to fix them.
“No pain, no gain” is a phrase that is readily thrown around when it comes to working with athletes. And in this situation, it couldn’t be more accurate.
