December 06, 2007

• I'm of such mixed minds about the concept of playing with pain. On one hand, I understand the honor in fulfilling your goals at any cost, and (having played team sports) sucking it up so as to not let down your teammates. On the other, this impulse can leave people crippled (or worse -- see the HS boys who drop dead during two-a-days in 100-degree heat each August) unnecessarily. I'm interested to see how this girl recovers, and whether she still thinks it was worth it in 10 years.
• Good story. Thanks for the link, MCT.
• some people see her decision as heroic. I see it as foolish. It wasn't a life or death situation, she wasn't saving her baby, she was playing a game. Sometimes people SHOULD give up on their goals.
• Sometimes people SHOULD give up on their goals. Those people generally don't make it to the state finals.
• Here's the thing: when you're upright and still moving and it's just pain, you're going to keep going, particularly when the finish line is that close. I've gone over this in my head several times over the last few hours, and the question I've asked myself is "What would I have done?" Well, I'd have tried to finish, too. I don't know if I would have tried to get back up as many times as she did (because I don't know if I'm as tough as she is), but I goddamn well would have crawled the last few yards, as she ultimately did. It's easy to stand on the sidelines and think "Stay down, you idiot!" -- indeed, that was my initial reaction when I first watched the video, but there's no way I would have done so, had I been in that race. No, it's not life or death, but it's not just "playing a game," either. It is positively soaked in personal significance, something you carry on your back for the rest of your life. And when the fulfillment of that significance is literally mere steps away, you dig deep, you cowboy/girl up, and you gut it out to the finish. My prediction: she's going to have a long, hard road to recovery, and then she's going to start running again. On preview: must learn pith from rocket88.
• I would suspect that there wasn't all that much thought to it. When you're in 'the zone' (or whatever you want to call it), a rational thought process is out the window, as you're coasting on adrenalin, and focused on the goal at hand, to the exclusion of everything else. Which would mean that she likely can't be criticized for not stopping, but can't be given accolades for crawling, either. I'm wondering what the hell her loved ones in the stands or her coaches were thinking -- not rushing to her side to help, but waiting at the finish line? What kind of priorities are those?
• Seems perfectly in keeping with the distance runner's mindset to me.
• I realize she was in the middle of a runner's high and probably wasn't feeling it. I realize she had set her goals and was determined to finish. I think she probably has a high pain tolerance (as many distance runners do.) Nevertheless--in high school? WTF were the coaches and her parents thinking to let her do that? she likely can't be criticized for not stopping, but can't be given accolades for crawling, either. [see] whether she still thinks it was worth it in 10 years. Yes to the above. AFAIC, she may be tough, and she may be determined, and you might even says she's brave, but she's no hero. Bad example for other high school kids, IMO. She wasn't under enemy fire or trying to save her baby. Those are the people who are heroes. And I'm not sure about ten years from now, but when she's 40 or 50 and having severe arthritis and other medical problems, THEN will it have been worth it?
• Well, I for one think she showed incredible fortitude and personal spirit. Pain is just pain, and can be suppressed in the heat of competition. As for the parents and coaches...I applaud them for not interfering. Once the leg was broken (and they probably didn't realize the extent of the injury, anyway) there really wasn't much they could do. Knowing her the way they did they probably knew she wouldn't want to be stopped. Besides, she's not a little kid, she's a high school senior...what's that 17 or 18? Practically an adult and deserving of being treated as one.
• Incredible fortitude and personal spirit are not necessarily mutually exclusive to bad decision-making.
• FWIW, when Mrs. TheDog broke her leg two years ago, she told the ambulance guys that she didn't need a pain killer, it wasn't hurting. Bad decision. By the time she got to the ER she was in tears with excruciating pain. So, I'm guessing that the hero of this story was doing her crawly thing before her brain really started screaming. Not that it wasn't difficult, it just may not have been quite as awful as it sounds. Also: never refuse morphine.
• they probably didn't realize the extent of the injury, anyway This is the crux of it. Pain is a part of long distance running, particularly when you're new to it (and she'd only been running a year), and part of learning to run distance is learning what pains are normal and can be run through and what pains are not. Stress fractures are very common -- I personally know two distance runners, one of them a member of this site, who've had tibia stress fractures in the last six months. The thing about stress fractures is they hurt, but not necessarily badly enough that you can't run on them. She'd been having pains for two weeks, so her coach dialed back her training, which is what you do -- ease off for a couple of weeks and see if the pain gets better. If not, we'll investigate further. In the meantime, if it had been hurting severely enough to affect her gait significantly, the coach or her parents would have taken her out, I'm sure. Point is I don't think she's a hero, but neither do I think she was stupid, because you never know how these things might go. Monday-morning quarterbacking is easy to do, but this is a sport where chronic pains come and go, and sometimes you have to make tough judgment calls. I limped like a bastard for two days after my first marathon, could in fact barely climb the stairs to get food and water after the race. If you'd seen me then, you might have had the same reaction some of you are having now, but the only problem was an IT band that was stretched too tight. A massage and a few days of regular stretching fixed it.
• Totally hear you; been there myself. Broke my neck -- cracked 5th C.V. -- playing rugby in college (2nd row/lock). Finished that practice session, then played in all the rest of the season's games. I now consider myself lucky that I didn't compound the injury, and blame the injury for chronic neck pain. If I had it to do over again, I'd stop playing rugby after the injury, at least until fully healed. It's just a shame that she didn't stop after the first or second break, rather than putting herself through four breaks (or "cracks"). Also, we get this "Wide World of Sports" gotta-play-with-pain message drilled into us from a very young age, if we compete in athletics, and I don't know that there's as much counterweight as would be ideal to that propaganda. Could/should the coaches have inserted some reason into the proceedings before she broke her fibula? That's a valid question, methinks. But I totally understand what went down, and don't think anyone did anything "wrong."
• The sound of a breaking bone is fairly distinctive, I don't really see how anybody didn't realize what happened. And coming as someone who competed in high school track (and placed in the state championships from sophmore year on), this is just stupid. Your health is more important than a race everyone will have forgotten in 3 months or less.
• mct: You can add me to that list. I had a tibial stress fracture a couple of months back, exacerbated by 3-a-day softball playoff games. By the third game each week I was usually in considerable pain, but played anyway. I had that "the team needs me" "it's the playoffs" mentality and made it worse. If I had known the end result could be a clean break of the bone I probably wouldn't have been so gung-ho. Thankfully that didn't happen. I can totally understand the drive, though, and don't fault her for what she did. Plenty of teens are doing much more idiotic and dangerous things (see tatoo/scarification thread for but one example).
• I really hate to point it out, but its high school, meaning the team changes every year. Fairly soon, people won't care.
• I really hate to point it out, but its (sic) life, meaning that this issue is a tiny mote of dust in an endless universe of infinite space. Nothing cares.
• I hate to point it out, but I don't think she cared if people would care or remember in the future. I think she cared about finishing the race.
• MCT: I'm not saying anyone should have had a crystal ball concerning the stress factors, hey, let the kid run. BUT it certainly isn't Monday-morning quarterbacking when the kid goes down with broken bones and then crawls down the track to get across the finish line. I think HW knows whereof he speaks. Later in life things can come back to haunt you. (Oh, and guy, I'm glad, and you're dang lucky, you didn't end up in a wheelchair--it happens.)
• I hate to point it out, but there seems to be a growing trend of beginning comments with "I hate to point it out."
• I hate to point it out, but I just made that trend grow even more. As someone once said, ACK.
• I hate to point it out, but I have nothing to contribute.
• I hate to point it out, but that's obvious.
• :)
• you're dang lucky Nah, I knew exactly what it was, did maintenance on it throughout the race as I could, and finished strong.
• MCT: ummmm, hmmmm. If you say so. Different circumstances, perhaps. Knew a gal that came off a horse over a big jump and cracked a CV. Everybody thought things were doing well after that, but then she got bumped in a crowd at a horse show. NOT. good. things. happened. Glad to hear you finished fine.
• Speaking as someone who had a break resulting in pins and rods at 19, it sure as hell does catch up with you in 10 years. I don't fault the girl, but I do think her coaches and parents should have stopped her.