BY DICKSON MERCER It barely registered on a one-to-ten pain scale. This was a small red mark below my ankle bone - one of those hot spots. The cause, I was sure, was a new, narrower version of my training shoe. But changing shoes made no difference. And even after putting on a fresh bandaid became a reflex like putting on socks and shoes, this seemingly minor malady persisted. I would feel these little jabs of pain in my foot while running - but only at odd times, like when I came to a stop. It never struck me, in other words, as day-off-worthy. After all, there was Boston to train for. And when you are preparing for a marathon - any race, for that matter - training logs full of zeroes don’t cut it. In the world runners live in, the line between injury and breakthrough is thin. This is why, at 32 and fourteen years into my competitive running life, massage therapists like Andrew Carr and physical trainers like Sarah Buckheit are such an important part of my running life. Because, without them, I tend to cross over the line. Even with them, though, I still cross it sometimes: like a few months ago, when I woke up one morning after a hard post-work tempo and felt intense pain in my foot. For months, as it turns out, I had been applying bandaids and antibiotic ointment to a tendon strain. And this case of self-misdiagnosis got me thinking: People like Carr and Buckheit are really experts in injury prevention, but rarely is the tendency to see them before the injury has occurred. What advice, I wondered, would the five physical therapists and a chiropractor you nominated for our Best of RunWashington have for differentiating between everyday aches and the first signs of an injury?
MAY JUNE 2014 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 47