I have been dealing with a hip flexor injury that led me to give up on running and deal with mental health issues for the last two years. I have the opportunity to join my d3 college cross country team this fall and get back into the sport but i'm worried about getting injured again and never being able to return to the shape I was. Anyone have any success stories of coming back from a situation similar to mine? Or any general advice? Thanks.
Go slower than you want to. Cross train. Focus on flexibility and mobility. Warm up properly EVERY SINGLE TIME. Make good rest and recovery choices (food, activity, sleep). Pay attention to your body at rest, maintain neutral weight distribution and body posture.
If you're still in college there's plenty of time.
21bmetcalf wrote:
I have been dealing with a hip flexor injury that led me to give up on running and deal with mental health issues for the last two years. I have the opportunity to join my d3 college cross country team this fall and get back into the sport but i'm worried about getting injured again and never being able to return to the shape I was. Anyone have any success stories of coming back from a situation similar to mine? Or any general advice? Thanks.
Went to Juco for two years. My fastest PR in the 1500 at the time was a 4:02 and after my two years of running I stop going to school for almost 3 years to work fulltime because I was tire of being broke. During those years I did not run. Later I got the itch to run again. Went back to school and transferred to a D2 university to compete again. It took me about a year to get back to form and I finished my last season with a PR of 3:54 in the 1500. Not bad for an older dude who took a lot of time off running.
You'll be fine if you go back. Good luck.
have you considered dropping down in distance? at a D3 you can usually do as you please. drop below whatever cutoff gets you in shorter mileage training, either middistance or sprints, and make your goal finishing a final TF season.
either that or if you have to be a distance guy, work out some sort of deal with the XC/TF coach where you do less mileage and cross-train, the valby approach.
i also am a big believer in surfaces and injuries. do work on the softest surfaces possible.
common sense is don't do the same exact thing over and convince yourself it comes out better this time. either do distance but different, or pivot to shorter races with lower training demands and just view it as a "capper" and challenge of another facet of self. you might not get points at conference but a win might be actually finishing a season and setting some PR.
i mean, way i look at it, if you define yourself as not just a runner but a 5k guy but can't stay healthy to do many meets or conference, then you're not really much of a 5k guy on durability, at least under that training regime. acknowledge reality, cross over to the dark side, redefine as a general purpose "runner," try mile, half mile, quarter, anything the right side of mileage insanity, with the idea of a healthy season you can finish out.
at minimum, i had a college soccer coach who overtrained us, and i self-protected by loafing some of the more obnoxious days or aspects. sit down with the coach and hash out some sort of training plan that beats you up less. i did 2 years of XC in HS. the one that worked i got to chop off some of the workouts acknowledging i played soccer too. the one that didn't that dispensation got yanked and i got run in the ground. if they are smart they say yes.
if the same coach does both XC and TF you probably have to commit to one path or the other this summer as whatever happens in the fall will follow you to the spring.