Looking Forward

Here is one of those iconic pictures of the great Jim Ryun showing his head slightly askew, pumping arms, powerful stride, and eyes glued on the goal of reaching the finish line in first place. The picture is about Jim Ryun, and not many people may notice the "other guy". Well, I never did. However,  I was recently informed that the other guy is a runner named Glenn Ogden, whose name didn't ring any bells with me, even though I consider myself a student of the sport. I was surprised to find out that Glenn Ogden was a 1965 graduate of The Stony Brook School on Long Island, the same small college prep school that I attended. Here is the caption I found for the photo:

Glenn Ogden ’65 was one of the finest runners in school history.  After a Hall of Fame career for the Blue and White he attended the University of Missouri where he won 2 Conference Championships for the Tigers and set the 2 mile record with a time of 8:46.0.  In the above photo Ogden is running against one of the biggest names in the history of American sports: Jim Ryun.  In 1964 Ryun became the 1st high schooler to smash the 4 minute mile barrier by running a blazing 3:59.0 as a junior.  His litany of accomplishments include being a 3-time Olympian, setting the mile and 2 mile world records as a 19-year-old and being named Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year.”

Stony Brook for many years had a strong and stellar tradition as a running powerhouse with many accomplished running "stars" and "no" I was not one of them (history here).  After a little searching I noticed that Glenn was ranked 9th in the USA at 5000 meters in 1966 (former Wheaton College teammate Dan Henderson was ranked 9th in 1984 and 8th in 1985). The all-time USA rankings in the men's 5000 meters can be found here. Another outstanding Stony Brook and national class runner Robin Lingle preceded Glenn at Missouri. Lingle would later coach at Missouri and then return to coach at Stony Brook. It was interesting to find out more about that old photo and discover the connections to my own running past!

As much as a runner looks forward to finishing a race, I am looking forward to Monday when I finally find out results of the MRI I had over a week ago. I hope the doctors can finally tell me what is wrong with my hip. I also hope to find out whether surgery will correct things (it better). I have my ideas about what they will find. I put my money on hearing the words "labral tear" and "hip impingement". I do hope they offer hope for me that I can be fixed. I have completely given up on even trying to run any more. It just doesn't work. I was so excited to finally get warm enough weather last week to go out biking. I took out my mountain bike and it felt good so I did about an hour, but that night the "nerve pain" came again all down my left side and stayed with me throughout the next day. I was hoping that at least I could bike, but I guess I can't even do that. It seems the only exercise I can do to work on my endurance is kettlebells. Yesterday, I set a new PR doing kettlebell swings. I did 1250 swings with my 50 pound kettlebell. It feels good to do these, but the only problem is I now get blisters on my hands instead of my feet.

I have had lots of conversations and  feedback online with other runners that have had labral tears and so much of what I have experienced matches up to their stories. The best description offered me explaining labral tears and their cause and damage comes from runner, cyclist, kickbiker-footbiker, and chiropractor Jamie Whitlock, (also runs the No Gears Needed blog). He wrote me this:

Labral tears would be a surgical fix. If that is the problem I would think that it was result of an imbalance. The muscles of the pelvis/hip, especially the psoas, are so prone to tightening, then you get a weakened Glute Medius, which is a stabilizer of the pelvis, and you are rocking side to side vs. gliding forward. This puts undo pressure on the hip joint itself, and shazaam internal destruction in or around the joint....All the muscles around that area, TFL, of course the ITB, G Med, Psoas, Piriformis all culprits!

That about sums up most of my trouble muscles and imbalance problems and tells about what I expect the MRI to show, "internal destruction in or around the joint."