24 MARCH 2017 womensrunninguk.co.uk⁄ TOKEN BLOKE
ABOUT DAMIAN
JOURNALIST AND
MIDLIFE-CRISIS ULTRA
RUNNER DAMIAN
HALL IS HAPPIEST
WHEN RUNNING
LONG DISTANCES IN
LUMPY PLACES. HE’S
AN AMBASSADOR FOR
ALL-TERRAIN RUNNING
BRAND INOV-8 AND HIS
NEW BOOK, A YEAR ON
THE RUN (AURUM), IS
OUT NOW. YOU’LL FIND
MORE OF THIS SORT OF
HOGWASH
AT @DAMO_HALLOur (usually) annoyingly cheerful ultrarunner
Damian Hall isn’t injured, but he does have a niggleMAKING PLANS
WITH NIGEL
his is the column I never wanted to write.
I’ve got an injury. Well, not a real injury. Just
a niggle. I prefer the word niggle. It sounds
more like a friendly little pest: your neighbour’s
yappy dog, who’s cute, but occasionally craps in your
garden. Like with hurricanes, it’s tempting to give injuries
and niggles names and I’m calling mine Nigel.
My not-backed-up-by-science classification is that,
with a niggle, you can carry on running (ideally with a
physio’s consent and often with training plan tweaks). But
if you have to stop running, you’ve got an injury. I can run if
I want to – in fact I’ve done two ultras on it. However, if I run
at the moment, my Achilles tendon can get lumpy, grumpy
and swollen. The needy, self-centred thing. So now seems
like a good time to not run on it for a bit. And instead, says
my physio, do so many lunges and squats that I’ll soon
have the backside of a Kardashian.
As usual, overenthusiasm was my undoing, both
recently, when I tried to catch up too fast after a planned
month off training, and in the summer, when I ran up
Snowdon four times in a day. Two weeks after a BobGraham Round. I still maintain that it wasn’t the Snowdon
reps that did the damage per se, but the drive home. Sure,
the 28,000ft of climb weakened me, but what should have
been a three- to four-hour drive back south became a six-
hour Kafkaesque nightmare as the Highway Authorities,
or whoever’s in charge of that sort of thing, began shutting
the M5. The discomfort in my Achilles is at exactly the point
where my foot presses the accelerator. So, you see, it can’t
have been the mountain. It must have been the car.
The worst thing you can do when you have a niggle
is go on the internet. Firstly, like if you’re unhappily single
and everyone else seems to be in the perfect, rom-com
relationship, social media taunts that every other runner
in the world is out running 20-milers in the Lakes and Alps
on perfect crispy, sunny winter days. But also, when spirits
are low and hope is needed, there’s the temptation to
visit... forums.
Running forums must be avoided at all costs. I know
I mustn’t visit them with a niggle in mind, but I have
occasionally given in. A post from Mike from Morecambe,
who conquered something vaguely similar with the help
of frozen coconut milk and a sheep placenta back in 1982,
gives me a temporary boost. But trying to verify that theory
takes me to an anecdote by someone with a similarish
injury who had both legs amputated.
Christmas – when I started my break – is both the best
and worst time to be off running. It means you can forget
about dark early mornings and instead think about feasting
and boozing. Except without the usual extra calorie burn
sessions, there’s a very real chance of getting a bit plump.
I’ve found that when non-runners ask how I am, I
automatically start telling them about the shape and
colour of my Achilles tendon – because my mood depends
entirely on how that small part of my body is behaving. It’s
the first thing I reach for in the morning. Then I look at their
face and realise they’ve no idea what or where an Achilles
tendon is. And even if my eyes scream, “I haven’t run for
eight days, 17 hours, 52 minutes and seven seconds, and
I’m slowly dying because of it!”, I’m better off saying, “Fine,
thanks. Yourself?”
There are some small positives about being niggled
though. You can semi-legitimately wear a load of brightly
coloured kinesiology tape. I never feel like I’m a proper
runner unless I’ve got some k-tape on somewhere and it’s
nice to have a proper reason to stick a bit here and there.
I’ve also had the chance to do some cycling. Cycling’s
pretty silly, though. You are after all just sitting down, while
breathing in exhaust fumes dressed in luminous MAMIL
clobber. It’s nice to get out and everything, but there’s no
danger of me becoming a cyclist.
I enjoy going to the physio, though. Well, it’s better
than the dentist. It hurts more, but my dentist always
asks me questions when my mouth is full of hurty metal
instruments. I always learn something from the physio.
Usually how a lower-leg niggle is actually caused by my
misaligned ears or something. I think this means my ears
need names, too. Though Nigel’s not going to like not being
the centre of attention anymore.T
© ISTOCKPHOTO.COMFour reps up Snowdon –
harmless fun, surely?WR86_024.indd 24 13/01/2017 15:02