Coming back from injury or illness over 40

Let's Say Hello

[00:02:08.630] – Allan
Hey Raz, how you doing?

[00:02:10.220] – Rachel
Good, how are you today, Allan?

[00:02:12.200] – Allan
I'm doing better. I'm doing better. It's over at least as far as symptoms for me are. I can actually taste things again. I'm not sure about my smell being all the way back. It's really hard to tell because I didn't have a very good sense of smell to begin with, which has its benefits when you're dealing with stuff that you don't like or doesn't smell good, but also has its deterrence, because if you can't smell something smells bad, then you don't know it smells bad and that can put you in a bad place.

[00:02:42.470] – Allan
So I'm not the one. If you smell something bad, you say, do you smell that? My answer is probably going to be no. And especially after covid. Like I said, I don't know that I've fully recovered, but there wasn't that much to recover in the first place.

[00:02:53.930] – Rachel
Well, good. I'm glad you could taste food again. I can't imagine how weird that would be not to taste.

[00:03:00.080] – Allan
It was weird. And you know, the thing that a lot of folks wouldn't recognize or wouldn't know is that a big part of overeating is that people don't have the reward system for taste and therefore they're actually not tasting their food as much. And that's why we have a tendency to overeat. You know, the mindless sitting there eating a bag of chips while you're watching a movie, you don't taste those chips. You tasted the first bite, then you got into the movie and the crunch, crunch, crunch, empty bag.

[00:03:31.340] – Allan
And you didn't even actually taste that food. Your body just got the endorphins that got the dopamine hit. And that just sort of happened. And so when you're not tasting food, you actually it's hard to not overeat because you tend to just end up eating more of it. It doesn't signal your body that you're full. It doesn't tell you that you're eating foods and getting the right mix of foods. So the signaling is just haywire.

[00:03:59.810] – Allan
So it's really easy to overeat when you're not when you can't taste food. I know that sounds counterintuitive.

[00:04:06.740] – Rachel
Does sound weird.

[00:04:08.870] – Rachel
it's strange. If I couldn't taste anything, I don't know that I would waste time sitting at my table eating food.

[00:04:13.970] – Allan
I ate more than I would normally have eaten because I couldn't taste it. And I just kept eating, thinking, OK, I need to eat. And but I realized after I was done, I was like, you know, normally I would take that cut of steak and that would be two steaks. And I ate the whole steak and like, you know, still try to eat good stuff. But, you know, in a general sense, when I'm not feeling well, I kind of let myself do those other things, you know, then that I wouldn't normally do because it's like, OK, just

[00:04:46.270] – Allan
Chill, you know, I can't get people to go by the high quality foods that I want to buy. I need you to go here to that store and buy that for me and go to that store and only buy this if it says this on the label. And, you know, I couldn't get to folks, so I was like, I just buy me some potatoes, some chicken.

[00:05:03.910] – Rachel
And that's probably good enough.

[00:05:05.890] – Allan
Yeah. And well run with it.

[00:05:07.480] – Rachel
Oh my goodness, how crazy.

[00:05:09.820] – Allan
Yeah. The worst part of it was one of our neighbors, dear friends, she brought us some pasta with lobster. And I couldn't taste.

[00:05:19.370] – Rachel
Oh, no. Oh, how disappointing.

[00:05:24.970] – Allan
Like this looks like it would taste delicious.

[00:05:28.610] – Rachel
Oh my gosh. Well now you'll have to try it again once now that you're feeling better and can taste a little more.

[00:05:34.400] – Allan
I'll have to call her and say thank you. Can I have some more?

[00:05:39.500] – Rachel
Right!

[00:05:39.500] – Allan
See how that goes?

[00:05:40.370] – Rachel
Absolutely.

[00:05:41.870] – Allan
How are things up there?

[00:05:43.430] – Rachel
Good. Really good. You know, funny thing happened up here the other day. We lost power for no good reason whatsoever. It was a beautiful morning, but we lost power. And so I just went about my day cleaning. I knew the power would be back on in a few hours. But the funny part was every time I entered a room, I turned on the light switch because it's such a habit. And I knew the power was out.

[00:06:07.310] – Rachel
I knew what I was doing because the power was out. But every time I entered a room, I kept turning on the light switch and it got me thinking about habits. And I do have a lot. I drink coffee every morning. That's my morning habits. And I do like to run and I do prefer running in the morning. But I'm being kind of forced out of that habit right now because my 50 miler that's coming up starts at noon.

[00:06:31.280] – Rachel
So I've had to adjust that habit to run later in the day. And it's been a challenging adjustment for me. And I'm actually looking forward to getting this race over so I can go back to running in the mornings again. I am a creature of habit.

[00:06:47.420] – Allan
Well, we all are. We just like you said, we don't necessarily recognize it until something brings it to our attention, you know, like the light switch thing. A lot of us are that way even during the daytime. We're going to walk into a room. We're going to hit the light switch. It's a trigger thing. When you walk in the room, you're going through the door, you're going to do something.

[00:07:08.830] – Allan
It's, you know, kind of when you start to understand those triggers and then your immediate action, you know, that's when you can actually start making some decisions. You know, can I change this habit? You know, do we need the light on every time I walk in the room? And the answer at least half the time is probably no.

[00:07:27.440] – Rachel
Right.

[00:07:28.520] – Allan
You know, because half the time it's daylight and half the time it's dark. So half the time you don't necessarily need that light on. But that's not a habit that from a health perspective, you know, is damaging. But a lot of us do have those triggers for the bad habits, you know, and so being aware of that, that's self awareness is really, really important. So it's good to mix up your schedule. It's good to kind of have a little bit of that.

[00:07:58.130] – Allan
It's a learning opportunity. When you said a strange thing, the power went on like, what was it, Tuesday that happens every day here?

[00:08:05.970] – Rachel
Oh, gosh.

[00:08:08.150] – Allan
Not every day. No, that's that's a little oversell. But no, the power goes out regularly here. You know, sometimes we know it's going to happen because they'll say, well, you know, they want to clean the the growth around some of the wires, you know, and can't they just turn off that part of the, No, they've got to turn off the whole island. OK, but, you know, like, we can't get water in our house unless our pumps running.

[00:08:31.490] – Allan
Yeah. And so we don't have water. So when the power goes out, we don't have running water. We don't have power. Air conditioning, all that. You know, I've set it up now. My wife, we have uninterruptible power supplies here. You know, you almost have to. Yeah. So I've got the Wi-Fi router in the actual router. All of that set up now on our UPS the power goes out,

[00:09:00.130] – Allan
We'll have power for at least an hour or so to continue to do what we're doing. So if we were, you know, Snapchat being spread like doing the Zoom call, you know, it would all stay on everything around me would go dark. But then, you know, we could still keep going and then finish out what you're doing and then it's OK. I guess I'll go read a book outside. You know, but, you know, it happens.

[00:09:26.290] – Allan
You sleep and the power goes out and it's like, oh, and you know, most I know it because the air conditioning goes off. But if I leave my phone playing the sounds of the fan, I'm not going to wake up, you know, because I mean, I'm going to I'm going to wear my battery down and I'll wake up at three o'clock in the morning with no sound. And I'll realize that the battery on my phone died, too.

[00:09:46.750] – Allan
And so I don't want that to happen. So, you know, when the power goes out, they need to wake up, turn my phone off, try to sleep in the very dark room with no sound, which is odd for me. It's different. And that's what I'm saying. Sometimes just doing something that's a little out of the norm teaches you the habits. You know, for me, the habit is. Turn out the light, go to bed, turn on the fan noise on my phone, go to sleep, I'm almost like that, I mean, and almost that fast.

[00:10:16.470] – Allan
it's just because a habit I have a sleep routine and during that sleep routine just kind of puts me into the next step of the habit. Fall asleep. So someone could be good habits and some of them could be bad habits and some of them are just wasting a little electricity. Not a lot. Just a little. But, you know, this kind of one of those things that we learn, we learn more about ourselves doing something different than we do, doing what we always do.

[00:10:42.210] – Rachel
Yeah, that is right.

[00:10:44.730] – Allan
All right. Well, you ready to get into today's talk?

[00:10:47.160] – Rachel
Yes.

[00:10:48.330] – Allan
Cool.

Episode

On today's episode, I wanted to talk about coming back from injury or illness over 40. As you may have heard, I was diagnosed with covid a little over a month and a week ago and not a cool thing and not a cool thing at all, but they put me in an ambulance, drove me home and said, sit your butt in this house for two weeks.

They did give me some food and we had some friends that could shop for us. So we were OK. But it did kind of mess with my plans. I had the basic symptoms, fatigue, cold and flu stuff, loss of taste and smell, and this really weird phantom smell thing, which I won't go into, but just recognize that it set me back. And it's fairly common for this to be happening on a regular basis for anyone over the age of 40.

It's inevitable, I guess would be the better word for us to have some form of injury or some illness over the course of our adult lives. And so how we deal with this, particularly when we're over 40, is really, really important. OK, so I'm diagnosed with covid. I can't go anywhere. Definitely can't go to the gym. And while I'm on that topic, it's a regular thing people will be asking typically during the cold and flu season.

So maybe less now this time of year, because we're really more kind of into the allergy season. But during the cold flu season, the question be, should I go to the gym if I'm sick? OK, and I'll just go ahead and put this out there. As a general rule, if you can avoid going to the gym sick, please do. The rest of us don't want to get sick. You know, you have covid. Absolutely do not go to the gym, you know, but other than that, if you have symptoms above the neck, you're more than safe to go out and do some work.

I prefer you do it outside, do it away from people, do it at home. If it's in the chest or low, you know, below the neck, you don't really need to be doing anything. And if there's a fever involved, definitely not a time for you to be exercising. This is the time for you to be focused on recovery. And we'll talk about that in a few minutes. But in a general sense, if you're sick, this might be a good time for you to go ahead and take some time off and recover and get yourself better before you worry about doing anything else.

And obviously, again, with covid entirely different matter, with injuries, maybe even a little bit different, and we'll get into each of those a little bit further as we go along. So the first thing is to recognize that injuries and illnesses are inevitable. You're going to have to face them at some point in your adult life. And so it's not something where you need to push back on yourself and be angry, sad, you know, all those negative emotions that you might have about it.

Those aren't going to serve you. They're not going to help you at all, OK? What you need to do is be able to take a step back objectively and do a couple different things. So the first thing you want to do is, is a basic evaluation. Was there something in your basic behavior that caused this injury? So let's say you were out and about and you weren't paying attention and you tripped and you broke your arm. OK, obviously not watching what you're doing, not paying attention.

You fell. OK? And by falling, you broke yourself. OK, an evaluation would be OK. Probably don't need to have that there. And I probably need to be a little bit more aware of my surroundings when I do particular things. You know, my wife and I own this bed and breakfast and there's the stairs coming down from the top to the bottom. Now we're living upstairs. While we do the renovation, we move downstairs this won't be as big of an issue, but in the morning when I get up in it's dark, but the lights are on downstairs, the slats in the wood, kind of shine this really weird cross angles on the steps as you walk down.

And I see that and I say, OK, that's a trip and fall hazard because I might see the step going a certain way when it goes a different way. So I've had my wife put in some pads so it's more skid resistant and we're putting in some motion sensitive lights. So someone's walking down the stairs, the lights will shine and that will negate that cross light thing. So paying attention to your environment so you avoid injuries, not doing certain things that cause injuries.

Like when I was doing deadlifts and wanted for some reason, do 500 pound dead lift, you know, overdoing it, overstressing over, you know, those are opportunities where your body's telling you through that pain, which is the signal something's not right. Use that time and evaluate that pain, evaluate why it happened and see if your behavior needs to change. Many times that's not the case, but there are times it is so being aware of that's very, very important.

The next thing to understand about all this is that injuries and illness, particularly when you're over 40, is not a stop button. It's a pause button too many times I'll be talking to folks almost every day, actually, and someone will say, yeah, I hurt my back, I hurt my knee, hurt my hip. In many cases, like three, five, 10 years ago, And they're not doing any activity now because it hurts. And that's just tragic. That just I mean, that eats at my soul, because when you stop moving, you stop living.

When you stop moving, you start deteriorating and you have to move to live, so if we're not doing anything to improve our fitness, to improve our health because of an injury, basically that injury beat us and we're letting that injury beat us. So this is not a stop button. We just have to figure this out and it's just a pause button. So pause, figure it out and let's move forward. So the first step, recover, OK?

Too many times people will injure themselves and they won't go to physical therapy. They won't do their physical therapy homework. They won't do what's necessary to get past this. The doctor gave them the pain meds. The pain meds solve the problem or at least the symptom, and they move on with their lives. If they try to lift anything or do something, it hurts and they're back on the pain meds. They don't want to do that. So they stop.

OK, so recover first. Do your physical therapy, get your stuff done. Your quarantine is two weeks that I sat in that bed and breakfast recovering, couldn't go to the gym, couldn't do the things I wanted to do, but I did what I could do and I recovered. I got healthy. That's job number one.

Next is to look for opportunities and buy opportunities. I mean, OK, so let's say you broke your arm, OK? I have a client that happens this to. Actually two one one hurt his wrist, another hurt her elbow. But basically a client gets injured not through their lifting, not through their other stuff. They just have an accident and there's an injury. This is a perfect opportunity for them to work on other modalities, they can work on mobility in their legs and hips, they can work on strength in their legs and hips. They can if the jarring doesn't hurt too much, they can start working on stamina work. They can do core work. There's just so many opportunities, so many other modalities that you would normally neglect.

But now that you have an injury so you can't do your prime thing, this is a great opportunity for you to spend that time doing something else that's going to improve you overall. OK, so use this time as an opportunity. If it's an illness, I used that covid time as an opportunity to really work on mindfulness and meditation. I spent a lot of time thinking, a lot of time in my head that I wouldn't normally have given myself the time to do, but because I was so fatigued that I couldn't really exercise the way I wanted to, I couldn't go anywhere and do anything I wanted to do. It was a great opportunity for me to sit and reflect and do the things I needed to do for better mental health, better clarity. So look for opportunities during this recovery time.

And then when you do come back stronger, have the plan, have the thing ready to go. And so we go into this injury and we're at a certain level. And too many times people will say, OK, well, I'm losing so much ground, I'm losing so much ground. The reality is you're probably not losing as much ground as you think. And if you're working on other modalities and other things, if you're taking those opportunities, you're probably a lot better off than you would have been otherwise.

So take a step back. Yes, you do need to take that step back and then start to retrace your route. So how does this look? OK, from a stamina perspective, let's say you did something to your ankle and or your foot and you're no longer able to run. OK, if you're out for a few weeks, maybe you cut down your distance and speed by. I don't know, 10 percent. If you're out for more than two months, you might have to cut back 50 percent.

So what does that look like? Again, let's say you were running and your long runs were around, you know, five miles, your medium short runs or somewhere around the two to three miles. And so you go back to do your first run. After that, you're in the one to two mile range, your long runs or more in the three, three and a half range. And then you build up from there and it'll come back pretty quickly.

Muscle remembers it can get back to its previous state pretty quickly if you don't let too much time pass. And then promote like a weightlifting perspective, let's say you're working and you have a particular lift and you're doing 50 pounds on this particular lift. When you hurt yourself, when you come back, if you're out for a couple of weeks, a few weeks, maybe you drop it down to 45, so you cut about 10 percent off that and feel how that works for you.

If you're out longer than that, maybe you drop it down to 25 and you do some reps, you get your sets in and you see how things are going. You'll improve pretty quickly. And as I mentioned before, you have that muscle memory. So your body's going to come back a lot quicker than you think it would.

Sponsor
This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Reel Paper.

A little over two years ago, my wife and I moved to Bocas del Toro, Panama. It has opened our eyes to many things that you don't get exposed to in the United States. One is how much waste we humans create, and another is how impoverished people often live in unsanitary conditions. Reel Paper is a company that's working on both of these issues. Reel Paper sells toilet paper and paper towels made from 100% bamboo, which grows faster, requires less water, creates more oxygen, a.k.a. less greenhouse gases, and doesn't require replanting after harvesting.

Yes, sustainable toilet paper is available for you now, conveniently shipped for free to your home. Not only is the toilet paper sustainable, all of the packaging is as well. Living on an island, we're in a constant battle with plastic. It's everywhere and it takes decades to decompose. Reel Paper is also working to tackle the sanitation problem by providing composting toilets to impoverished communities. That's another thing I was introduced to here in Bocas. You can take something that would otherwise be unsanitary and spread disease, but when you treat it properly, you can take it and make something useful, fertilizer. Reel paper is partnering with a company to do just that.

I often joke that my health and fitness vision is for me to be able to wipe my own butt at 105. If I have any say about it, it'll be Reel Paper on the toilet roll. Go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/reel and use the discount code, 40plus to get 25% off your first order.

We must begin treating the planet better and you can do it by going to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/reel and get 25% off with the discount code, 40plus. Thank you for supporting the show by checking out this wonderful company.

So to wrap all this up, I think that kind of the core concepts of all this is one, recovering from injury and illness over 40 requires you to have a good mindset. You need to wrap your mind around the fact that you have control. You're not out of control. Yes, this happened. It was inevitable that eventually something bad was going to happen. It just does. Get past it.

This was not a stop button. This was a pause. So do your evaluation understand why this happened? See if there's things you need to correct around you, your environment, yourself, the way you approach things. Slow down in some cases if you need to, but understand why the injury occurred or why the illness occurred. And let's do something about it, OK? Next, your why envision probably haven't changed this whole thing. And if you stop, then you're losing it.

You're losing that whole thing that got you going in the first place. So go back to that mindset, get your mind right. Get yourself back thinking about your why envision. And then you're in a good place, then work through your recovery, make you recover your first priority, make recovery your workout, make recovery the most important thing you do for yourself, and then look for those other opportunities that you may have otherwise neglected, like working on mobility, working on balance, working on strength or, you know, working on stamina, things that you may not have paid much attention to when you were focused on other things that you can't do now because of injury or illness.

And then finally take that step back if you need to. Don't go in this full force thinking you're just as strong as you were the day you left. You need to give your body an opportunity to regroup, retrain and get back to where it was. So retrace your route. Don't go back in thinking you're right where you were. You are going to lose a little bit. You're not going to lose that much, but you are going to lose little.

So go into it smart and get yourself back where you deserve to be.

Post Show/Recap

[00:25:39.920] – Allan
Welcome back, Raz.

[00:25:41.420] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, that is a really timely podcast and all of the running forums I follow, there's a lot of questions from runners in particular about coming back from covid, but also all the time runners are always asking how to come back to running after an injury. So these are constantly timely topics, but in particular, they are good for today.

[00:26:04.340] – Allan
Yeah. You know, one of the things, particularly with running and also with weightlifting, is the propensity to injure ourselves. You know, with running, you're doing a repetitive motion sometimes on concrete or other surfaces that are just beaten to death. Maybe you don't have the best shoes. Maybe you don't have the best running stride. And so you just really pounding on your body a little bit more in a repetitive fashion where over time it causes some basic injuries or some basic problems.

[00:26:35.210] – Allan
And a lot of people, because, you know, let's face it, running can be addictive. they won't stop running. You know, it's like, no, I'm going to keep running and it just gets worse and worse and worse until they can't run. And then that's when they're in this kind of stuck position. So, yes, recovery from that. You know, with weight lifting, it tends to be letting the ego get ahead of the body and, you know, deciding, OK, I'm going to try to do this extra weight and I'm going to get, you know, this is going to be cool and, you know, so, yeah, you're throwing it.

[00:27:05.480] – Allan
And throwing, you know, 80 pound dumbbells onto my shoulders to do overhead press. And I feel good about being that strong until I hear a little crack and a snap. And now my rotator cuff is completely torn off m bone. And, you know, that arm no longer functions the way it did seconds earlier and so doing the right things to recover from that, but you're going to go through something kind of interesting, but it's going to use a lot of these concepts that I talked about today is when you do this 100 miles,

[00:27:39.370] – Rachel
50,

[00:27:39.940] – Allan
50, 50 miles. We were talking before we got on the phone.

[00:27:43.600] – Allan
We got to talk about there's also a one hundred mile component in a hundred miles. And so we got to talk about. So sorry. No, Rachel is not doing a hundred. it's a burn. Got twenty four hours. Who knows?

[00:27:54.580] – Rachel
I got the time.

[00:27:56.980] – Allan
If they don't stop, you just keep running. You might catch them. But, you know, we're going to do this long run. And as a result, we don't even really know right now how how your body is going to respond other than, you know, on the reading of the forums and your experience and running some long distance, and, you know, the marathon range is that, you know, that when you come back, the best way I can put it is you're going to have to go through a period of time that I would call post-hab.

[00:28:27.880] – Rachel
Yes.

[00:28:28.930] – Allan
And so can you talk a little bit about what some of your plans are for post hab as we go into this? Because it's not I mean, you're not self inflicting an injury here. We don't want anyone to think that that's what you ordered illness. But in a sense, your body's going to go through some stress. That's going to be very similar to that. So can you talk a little bit about what your plans are after this race?

[00:28:51.940] – Rachel
Sure. So I'll be running 50 miles and I am estimating it'll take give or take 12 hours. I'm not that fast. I plan on a lot of breaks. We have to check in to aid stations. There's going to be some things to get done on this run besides running. But what happens is, is I will probably be sucking out every possible nutrient out of my blood and liver and muscles. I will be just depleting my body dry of all nutrients and probably a lot of hydration.

[00:29:26.020] – Rachel
So right after the run, I will be drinking a lot of water and electrolytes as well, both liquids to rehydrate. And I will start getting some food coming back in my body just to maintain normal body functions. And I recognize that I will probably be walking probably more than the last few miles of the race, but I will plan on walking after the race is over as well. It's important just to keep the body moving and to come down to some sort of basic equilibrium after all of that motion.

[00:30:00.370] – Rachel
So I'll sit a little, I'll elevate my elevate my feet a little and walk a little. And I also have compression garments. I've got compression pants, and I also have compression calf sleeves that I'll wear to help promote blood flow as well. Since I'm not staying at my home, I'm actually camping in a camper. And so I will get back to our campsite, take a shower and do a lot of that type of post hab. So I've got the foam roller, I've got the compression.

[00:30:35.230] – Rachel
I will elevate and stay hydrated and I will keep walking and chances are really good as even though I'm going to finish. I start the race at noon on Saturday and I should finish around midnight or so. Saturday night. Sunday morning. I will probably be tired but I'll also probably be too amp to sleep. So if I am tossing and turning in bed, I will count that as elevation for a little while and then go out and walk a little bit around the campsite as well.

[00:31:03.760] – Rachel
So a lot of moving and a lot of eating and drinking is pretty much my main rehabs or post habs.

[00:31:10.750] – Allan
Yeah. And then recognizing that, you know, we talked about being a creature of habit that you would normally be getting up in the morning and going for a run. Yeah, that's not going to be Rachel's M.O. for a few weeks. At least you're gonna have to come in and kind of refresh, let your body actually recover from the stressors that it's gone through and then start a training program that picks up somewhere well below the mileage that you would normally be running.

[00:31:42.310] – Rachel
Oh, absolutely. I'm anticipating that I will take that first one full week off of all running altogether. That's an easy no brainer. But I will be walking and I will pick dogs and walk. I will walk around my neighborhood by myself and just keep the legs moving and see how the muscles are responding. You know, if I was 20 years younger, I might be rebounding a lot faster, in which case I wouldn't mind going for a light jog, you know, for a mile here, there.

[00:32:13.480] – Rachel
But for myself, as I said, I'm approaching fifty, rehab and posthab takes a little bit longer. Recovery just takes longer. And so I'll have hot baths and cold baths and walking. And I'll probably start a running regimen maybe a week to 10 days after this race, and when I do start, it won't be going back out where I was before. I'll probably do a walk run type interval, maybe run for a minute, walk for a minute or a couple of minutes and just see how my legs feel.

[00:32:46.120] – Allan
Yeah. If you haven't run before, then you might not recognize that there's a natural spring to your leg as you kind of are walking or running. And when you do something like this, like a 50, which I did before and I did it, I did it like an optimal situation. It was a pine forest horse trail through a pine forest was about as soft, a nice place you could actually run on, you know, so the damage to my legs from, you know, hard or, you know, hitting was not the problem.

[00:33:14.800] – Allan
It was just the total number of miles. But it was about a month for me from that 50 where I actually felt like my legs had recovered their spring, you know, had recovered to a point where they were where they were. For that whole month, all I did was walking and in the gym, upper body exercise, you know, resistance training. So, you know, I was bench pressing and pull ups and, you know, rose and things like that.

[00:33:43.630] – Allan
Nothing for the legs. Just let the legs recover and do some walking, keep the blood flow to them. So they're repairing and doing what they need to, making sure you get plenty of protein and the other things that my body needs for that repair, you know. So for me, it was still I was kind of astounded because I was 29 and it literally took me a month to really feel like I was ready to run again. But, you know, and I think I've told this story right after I finished the race, I pulled a Forrest Gump and said, I'm tired, I'm going home.

[00:34:15.070] – Allan
And I haven't run anything longer than a 10K since then. And I even did that one under protest because it was a friend. She calls me and says, my niece was running this 10K tomorrow. And, you know, we told her we would go with her, but she doesn't want to walk. She wants to actually run it. And you're the only person I know that can run that far. And I'm like, OK, so I ran that 10k with this girl.

[00:34:39.440] – Allan
I thought the girl was going to burn out because she just took off sprinting. I'm like, OK, it's like you can't keep sprinting like this and think you're going to do a 10k. And she proved me wrong. I think I broke my PR on that 10k, but it was flying. So that's definitely a young athlete in the making there. But because I think she was like nine and I was like, oh my gosh, she just took off.

[00:35:02.860] – Allan
I'm like, OK, look, you know, I've got a phase now this girl.

[00:35:06.880] – Rachel
All out, so turn on the burner.

[00:35:09.200] – Allan
And she kept doing it. So that was what was surprising to me is like, yeah, I was like, OK, you got something special here. But that was only one I ran. And like I said, I did it under protest and for a really dear friend at the time. So I was like, OK, I'll do this.

[00:35:21.460] – Allan
But I didn't think I was going to have to sprint it myself, but I did. But, you know, it's just as we kind of go through all of this in recognizing that, you know, injuries and illness, they're going to happen.

[00:35:34.960] – Allan
And sometimes you have a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of opportunity. Like when I hurt my shoulder, I knew, OK, I'm stoked. And this is, again, the probably, you know, too much ego, but it is what it is. Ego hurt me. And then ego kept me from deciding when I was going to do my surgery straightaway. I said, well, I've got this Spartan coming up. And I thought my brother was going to be doing it with me.

[00:35:58.180] – Allan
So I was like, I can't cancel on him, you know, I've got to do this thing. So I had it in my mind. I was going to do it and then I would go get my surgery. And so I did that. I also jumped out of an airplane for Tammy and she wanted to do that. So that's part of that whole weekend was I went up there and did a Spartan and then I jumped out of an airplane the next day, all with a torn rotator cuff.

[00:36:20.980] – Allan
And so I knew I was going to get the surgery, but I arranged for three weeks where I was not to be traveling for work. So I knew, OK, every day I can go in when I if I need to, I can go in and get my physical therapy because the doctor was telling me, you know, he didn't know what the physical therapist was going to need to do, but it was going to be a few times a week for about six to eight weeks, maybe up to twelve.

[00:36:45.280] – Allan
Depending on how I how I did, and so I kept training. I kept doing stuff physically, you know, anything that didn't hurt my shoulder, I kept doing, and then I scheduled my surgery and I went in for the surgery and came out and I went into rehab, went to the physical therapist. And he's like, your range of motion is phenomenal. And he said, what? What did you do? Because he said most people would come in, you know, adults, not because I deal with athletes as I see athletes that come in like this.

[00:37:16.170] – Allan
He says, but you're not an athlete like that. You know the college athlete like that. He says, what are you doing? I said, well, I just kept training. They said, if it didn't hurt, I kept doing it. He's like, well, most people. Yeah, said most people would have put their arm in a sling and stayed of sling until they got their surgery. Then they'd have finished their surgery and they'd waited for a few weeks.

[00:37:32.730] – Allan
And I was like, no, I got my I got my surgery on a Thursday and Monday morning. Monday morning I was in therapy. so, you know, if you if you can plan it like you're planning your posthab on your run, you know, the timing of your run, you know, when you're going about when you going to finish even and you've got to plan. And so if it's an injury and you're going to go in for surgery, talk to your doctor, talk to, you know, if you can a physical therapist know what the plan is for your recovery so you can hit it running.

[00:38:00.570] – Allan
There's things you need to be doing before the surgery. Do them, you know. Yeah, and do them. Do it all. Do your homework from the physical therapist. Do this three times a day, do it and just do it. Yes. It's inconvenient to take this and put it in cold water and then pull it out, put it in hot water and pull it out. Cold water. It doesn't feel good, but it helps.

[00:38:23.760] – Allan
It definitely makes things better. And so making sure that you do your homework, set yourself up and, you know, illness and injuries are going to happen to us and we don't necessarily have a plan and we didn't plan for it. It just happens. And then we have to deal with it. But if you can control certain things about it, you'll recover a lot faster and be a lot stronger for it.

[00:38:45.210] – Rachel
That's let me just highlight that right there, Allan, because I want to point out that you'll be a lot stronger for it. I mean, just because you're injured doesn't mean you're out. And you could have the best comeback you've ever seen in whatever sport that you do. I'm sure your shoulder feels great now when you lift.

[00:39:00.900] – Allan
Yeah, it's well, it is. It's funny because, you know, in talking to the orthopedic surgeon, he said, you know, he said they did a study, said every cadaver they cut up in these cadavers who were in their 90s, people who died in their 90s. And so they went through and they were looking at them and they saw every single one of them had a torn, torn rotator cuff. Some of them had surgery for it and others had not.

[00:39:26.730] – Allan
But every single one of them had an impingement and had a problem with their shoulder, the rotator cuff. And so he said it's inevitable for most of us we're going to have that problem. And if you're someone who lifts and does a lot with your upper body, the potential is even higher because there's just more wear and tear. With mine, I had an impingement, which is basically where the bone is pressing down on the muscle and over time it just wears it down.

[00:39:56.820] – Allan
And he said so the muscle when he got in there was like paper thin and it just tore right off the bone. It snapped. It was gone. And so I was talking to him. I said, you know, obviously we're not going to spend the money to do an X-ray and an MRI on the other shoulder. And he said, yeah, probably. You probably do have an impingement over there. It's probably is as bad. This one just broke first.

[00:40:21.180] – Allan
And so what do I don't do right now? I don't lift eighty pound dumbbells up to my shoulders to press over my head because I recognize the heaviest thing I'm ever going to have to press over my head is a carton of Christmas decorations that I'm going have to put on the top shelf in our storage. Other than that, there's nothing heavier. There's definitely nothing a hundred sixty pounds that I need to put over my head for any reason whatsoever.

[00:40:48.990] – Allan
And if I did, I'd call somebody to come help me. So, you know, recognizing that, you know, ego can get you broke.

[00:40:58.290] – Rachel
Sure.

[00:40:59.670] – Allan
And recognizing those limitations that we have, you know, part of that self-awareness is I know that I probably have an impingement on my left shoulder. So I'm not doing things that I know would adversely affect that. But I'm doing what I need to do to be functionally fit,

[00:41:18.030] – Rachel
perfect

[00:41:18.840] – Allan
fit to be the best Allan, I can be. And that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to be able to deadlift a certain amount of weight or press a certain amount of weight over my head.

[00:41:28.110] – Allan
It just means when it's time to get the Christmas lights down, I could do that. When it's time to put them back, I could do that.

[00:41:34.780] – Rachel
Perfect. Well, that's just the point is that, you know what your potential weakness could be and you just need to work around it and you're doing just that. That sounds perfect.

[00:41:44.580] – Allan
Yeah. So good luck with your run.

[00:41:47.070] – Rachel
Thank you.

[00:41:47.970] – Allan
Good luck with your post hab.

[00:41:49.540] – Rachel
Yes, thank you.

[00:41:51.210] – Allan
Maybe the next time we talk to you, I think we're going to be talking to you relatively soon after your post hab maybe about a week after you finish your run. Maybe a little over a week. You know, when you finish your run and so at that point, you should have some pretty interesting stories to show.

[00:42:08.110] – Allan
So I'm looking forward to that.

[00:42:10.120] – Rachel
hope to have some good tales to tell.

[00:42:13.110] – Allan
That's how you get them. You do something you've never done. You do something that the vast majority of people who have never done. And now you've got a story. Now you've got a life. Now you've done something special. And so I always encourage people, if you don't have a big, audacious goal of just something exciting that you wake up in the morning and know, this is why I'm running, this is why I'm lifting. This is why I'm living.

[00:42:36.130] – Allan
I want to do this thing. And it can be a vacation. It can be a run. It can be a combo. Camp out run.

[00:42:43.810] – Rachel
Right! My favorite.

[00:42:45.880] – Allan
so, you know, just recognize that you're going to have a lot of fun. You can have a good bit of pain

[00:42:53.230] – Rachel
a little bit

[00:42:53.800] – Allan
you're gonna have some challenges and you're going to have the pride of knowing that you took 100 percent of you out on those Indiana roads and left it all there.

[00:43:04.790] – Rachel
That'll be great. Yeah. I'll be up in northern Michigan, actually.

[00:43:08.920] – Allan
Oh, I thought it was Indiana. I don't know why, you were going to Indiana now.

[00:43:12.850] – Rachel
Heading north.

[00:43:13.780] – Allan
OK, north.

[00:43:14.980] – Rachel
yeah. Looking forward to a new adventure, that's for sure.

[00:43:18.250] – Allan
All right. Well, we'll talk to you then.

[00:43:20.410] – Rachel
Thanks. Bye.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch	– Eric More	– Leigh Tanner
– Deb Scarlett	– John Dachauer	– Margaret Bakalian
– Debbie Ralston	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Eliza Lamb	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

Running injury free using the run walk run method with Jeff Galloway

Less...