Tales from the Trail

Trail blindness and protecting your investment

The words of a concerned friend echoed in my ear.

“If you get injured now, you are done!” While I am not into naysaying or attracting negative things with negative thoughts, the truth of these words is undeniable. Last year my race preparation was cut short by injury. It was not until 3 weeks before the Canadian Death Race that I was sure I would be able to compete. Because of all the biomechanical problems, I was “forced” to adopt a strategy of minimal preparation, much of it away from running. The net result of this is all in my book to be published later this year after CDR #2 is completed.

Now the Canadian Death Race itself is fraught with hazards: weather, bear, cougar, terrain, altitude and probably some other ones I have not thought of in addition to the training and preparation issues! But if it’s going to go south, I’d rather have it happen in the race, not a month or two before hand.

So the closer your race gets and the more time and money you have invested in it, the more you have to be sensible about protecting your investment.

Somewhere around 2 months before the race (if you’ve made it that far without damage!) you should really start to have a close look at any “high risk” behaviors in your training and begin to curb them.

In my own training this includes really hard speed work, which is notorious for inducing injury and mountain biking at least on highly technical areas (read: dangerous) although mountain biking can be a fantastic training substitute for trial running. I start to get off the bike on serious downhills and even uphills where I might fall. Pushing a 30 pound bike up a steep hill with a 20 pound pack is probably even more of a training stimulus than actually riding the hill and you remove any “fall factor”.

I learned this last year when tailing a buddy of mine around the lake we often run. All of a sudden I got a bird’s eye view of just how aggressive the tread on his Nike’s really was!

He landed a good 15 feet off trail and was banged up pretty badly 3 weeks before my race. If that had been me…

The closer the big race gets the more I personally recommend shifting over to non-running activities to support your cardio and let your “running structures” (bones, joints, and muscles) heal up for your best race effort.

Still, you have to run and trial running is inherently dangerous so here is a little personal Tale from the Trail.

Long hours of repeatedly putting one foot in front of another can be taxing on your concentration.

And yet we all know that this is part of the game of trail running no matter what the distance.

A good trail runner inherently scans the trail 20 to 50 feet in front of them depending on their visual acuity to start planning for what is coming next. But most of the time is spent looking about 6 to 10 feet ahead depending on whether you are on hills or flat and depending on how rough the trail actually is. Rails to trails are not really trails in my opinion and they require far less concentration; a nice place to do some of your training.

Rocky, slippery terrain covered with roots etc. requires pretty intense concentration. Having run long stints on these kinds of trails I can tell you concentration is a must.

Today I ran a 36 mile training run on terrain that varied from pretty technical to pretty easy.

I almost face-planted 3 times and I want to share those episodes with you so you may avoid them. I managed to fall on a nasty pointed rock a few weeks ago and hit my hip (my trochanteric bursa to be exact) and it is still a painful and slightly discolored memory of what can happen when you fall hard.

Near-fall number 1 took place on rocky rooted terrain slightly down hill. I saw the most fascinating giant mushrooms; brilliant orange and white on a tree stump nearby. In the two seconds or less I was “off trial” in my gaze, my feet found a rock and I went sailing. Because I run with poles I was able to use the poles and my upper body strength to prevent a fall. Without the poles I would most certainly have fallen hard. The fact that it was slightly down hill saved me as well.

Near-miss number 2 took place on pretty average terrain and occurred because of what I call “trail blindness”. I was looking but not seeing what was in front of me because I tuned out. No doubt it was the result of having my head tilted downward at the same angle and looking at the same distance in front of me for too long without performing the “lift-your-head-up-and-start-to-scan-farther-ahead” move. After I recovered from the rock that grabbed my foot I also realized that I had my head in a set position for a long time and my shoulders were getting sore just from holding it there. The 20 pound pack and the late run fatigue didn’t help either.

Near-miss number 3 was a replay of near miss number 1. This time I caught a peripheral glance of an object that looked out of place on the opposite shoreline of the lake I run next to. It turns out it was a herd of deer in the water wading and some swimming. It was a beautiful site and one I had not seen before although I read that deer are excellent swimmers and that this may be one of the factors involving the spread of Lyme disease to areas in nearby New York.

The actual connection between this sight and these thoughts again accounted for no more than 3 seconds but it was just enough for me to trip. Again the poles saved the day to the point where one of them actually shortened several centimeters from the impact of me desperately planting it in the ground to regain my balance.

So there you have it, my friend; the perils of looking both off and on trail in the wrong manner.

Distraction and trail blindness both need to be avoided to prevent a potential injury situation.

Ironically enough, while I have slipped, occasionally fallen and slid on many occasions while practicing good visual hygiene on the trail, I have never been in a situation that was likely to cause me an injury under those circumstances.

Simply put, when your head is in the right place and you are aware of the dangers, you rarely fall and when you do, you are prepared in advance.

It’s when your mind/vision connections lapse off trail (distractions) or even on (trail blindness) you are likely to hit the dirt, or the rocks, or the tress, etc.

Tail running can be far more cerebral than most people realize in so many ways. Many people actually do all of the above very well without thinking. For them it just comes naturally.

But as your race day closes and especially race day itself you want to remind yourself to be as vigilant as possible, especially when you are tired or out for a long time.

In closing, I want to admit to you that much of what I have written in this blog is about what you DON’T want to do. This is simply me sharing my experiences and hard won knowledge with you so you don’t need to repeat my mistakes.

There are many positive and “do” aspects to running, some of which I will tackle soon.

Best,
Dr Dave