That was the question posed to me by a patient this morning. Well actually he didn’t pose the question really, but he was genuinely surprised when I told him that his knee pain is likely due to the fact that he runs 18-19 miles per day 6 days per week. He doesn’t run on Sundays because that day he has to do something else, so he swims for 3 hours.
Now this guy limped into my office, nearly jumped off the table when I touched his knee, had a hard time sitting up because of his knee pain and he’s not sure he should take a break from running.
Oh I forgot to mention, he’s been doing this schedule for the last 3 years and coincidentally he has had knee pain for 3 years. He ran cross country in High school and track/CC in college, but the 5 mile runs just wasn’t enough for him, he didn’t feel challenged. He also lifts weights several times per wek.
He is currently training for BUDs (Navy SEALS), but he doesn’t even really want to do that. He’s only doing it because his brother is a SEAL and this will get him off his back, that and his shipmates tell him “might as well put all that exercise to good use, be a SEAL”. Also, he gets off work at 2pm so what else is there to do the rest of the day.
I get patients on both ends of the spectrum. The 19 year-olds who want a light duty chit for every ache and pain they feel and the ones who wouldn’t take light duty if both their legs were blown off.
I thought I was nuts running 2 hrs a day all this week getting ready for an ultra. Tell him you prescribe a good coach. Let SMAC take him down a couple of notches.
Of course, I told him he should buy a bike and start doing IM. He’s not motivated by competing anymore. He just runs to run. It’s his stress relief. He must have a lot of damn stress if it takes 4 1/2 hours a day.
Maybe suggest some therapy instead of running? Anyone who is running that much for stress reduction *and *is training for BUDS to get his brother off his back has some issues. Not sure how you make it through BUDS on bad knees and no real motivation to be a SEAL. There are tons of super healthy, tough, fit (and smart) guys who don’t make that goal because they don’t have the mental focus.
So is he going to cut back or just keep running on them?
Yeah, I would think that with HS and collegiate cc/track history he would be a little faster than that. Usually I can tell when someone is feeding me a line of BS, for some reason this guy seemed genuinely believable.
He did run at Cincy, they’re not necessarily known for their track & cc teams are they?