winter running - hidden dangers to look out for
‘The Nights Are Fair Drawin’ In’:
Down at my local running club, the clocks going back in October signals the return to pavement running after a summer of running across open countryside and along quiet rural lanes. Getting back under the streetlights also means the beginning of some fairly serious training with a weekly rep’ session taking place in an industrial estate with a square block of road that conveniently measures exactly half a mile. A dedicated group of us meet there every Tuesday evening at 7pm so we don’t see much traffic, just a few stragglers from the office buildings and a couple of learner drivers making use of the same quiet streets.
The regulars in the group are all competitive runners but that hasn’t ruled out the appearance of overuse injuries such as shin splints over the years. The sudden change from steady paced running on a variety of surfaces to fast paced, timed runs on Tarmac has caught out more than a few, so there’s a lesson to be learned; make changes to training gradually - and don’t let competitiveness creep into club training nights!
The location of the Tuesday evening sessions has actually become renowned as being a bit of an injury ‘black spot’ for runners but thankfully the injuries involved have left us unable to run for laughing rather than genuinely unable to run.
Here are some of the contenders for the ‘Dark-Night-Daft-Injury of the Decade Award’:
The Sam Browne belt in the branch incident:
Someone once commented that as a group, we looked like some kind of alien landing craft hovering above the ground when our reflective kit was caught in car headlights so it’s fair to say that we all took visibility issues seriously when running at night.
On our warm-up jog around the streets one evening, a particularly competitive runner in the group announced that he was going to be wearing his Sam Browne reflective belt for the Tuesday rep’ sessions instead of his usual reflective vest because he’d worked out there was some miniscule amount of difference in weight which might affect his performance. I think we were all about to laugh at him for coming out with that comment alone but before we got the chance, he dodged a puddle on the pavement - probably to avoid the excessive weight of water on his shoes - and got himself hooked up in a low-hanging tree branch which had slid neatly under the diagonal strap. The backward snap of the branch was enough to send him flying, depositing him on his bottom - in the puddle!
The pizza delivery and the lamp-post incident:
Picture the scene, the front runner on a speed rep’ session hears a distracting toot-toot sound behind him. He’s running on the pavement and not in the way of any road traffic so he’s pretty annoyed at being tooted at. What he’s unaware of is that some of the runners coming up behind him have strayed onto the road in an overtaking manoeuvre, prompting the approaching pizza delivery motorcycle to honk his horn - rather brave really because his bike was going to struggle to get past some of the front runners in a hurry! Anyway, back at the front of the pack, annoyed lead runner has turned round to glare at whoever has dared to toot-toot at him - only to then collide with a lamp-post!
The crouching tiger, hidden dog mess incident:
Part of our regular warm-up route took us along a row of houses with a beech hedge in front of them. Over the years we’d discovered a really scatty cat lived in the area and he’d often come springing out of the hedge as we passed causing us to experience everything from suspected heart attacks to stress incontinence! One runner in the group developed a particular cat phobia as a result and decided to avoid another encounter by running on the opposite side of the street which happened to be unlit. Well, you can guess the rest of this story…no streetlights…leaves on dark road…big slip up…not smelling like wet leaves on sole of shoe!
