Follow Greely senior Matt Woolverton this spring as he talks about his struggles with injuries, and his battle to overcome them for one healthy season.
Outdoor track is finally back!
After long await the Rangers are back at it again. I've been prepping for this for a while now and I am beyond excited to get going. That being said I'm nervous for what the future holds. With the hamstring injury that just won't quit I want more than anything to be able to put this all behind me. Just running longer distances is difficult with the lack of strength in my right leg right now. I'm getting back into the PT exercises and all of that fun stuff in the hopes of shaking the pain and getting back into racing form. I'm at the point of not having to worry about my future as much as I just want to get through the season. I ended up making a trip to Sports Authority and I picked up a knee brace and a calf sleeve. I'm hoping that the two will take some much needed impact force off of my already struggling leg.
However, looking beyond all of my fears and nerves going into the season I'm beyond excited to get going. This is my last chance to make it count, this is my last chance to finish a season without a chip on my shoulder.
Once again I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. I could do what I do best and just run through it until I hurt myself or I could take a step back risk my potential success and attempt simply to stay healthy. I'm not sure which I really want to do right not to be honest. I think I'll take it as it comes.
After one practice my legs are already aching. I'm stretching more now that outdoor has gotten started and that (surprisingly) has been really nice. I find that when I stretch on my own it's a great time to think, to plan, to find goals. I'm a big fan of setting goals. I think they help us stay honest with ourselves. Sometimes they are simply impossible, like staying healthy in my case. Others, like going to the gym and making sure you finish a workout to the best of your ability are goals I think are incredibly important. Now that track is back into things I've decided to go back onto a training type diet, I plan to limit
back carbs and overall sugar and try to go heavy on the good stuff. One year I went gluten free and that was fairly difficult for me so instead of eliminating carbs entirely I'm toning it back from arguably three meals a day to one. I think it will do a lot of good for me staying healthy and in shape (especially if I get injured again and can't run).
For the past two weeks I've been going out on runs. I'm a big fan of getting prepared and in my opinion going for distance runs even though I'm a sprinter is helpful. I find distance to be the most difficult due to the endurance, my hamstrings are too weak at this point to carry me through as fast as I'd like to go.
All that being said running distance (sprinter distance I should add, I'm doing about 30 minute to hour long runs, no crazy mileage.) has helped if not at least a little getting back into shape.
I have sports induced asthma and as much as I think it doesn't get that much better the more I run for longer distances the better I feel breathing wise during a sprinters workout.
Wrapping this up I'm really looking forward to what my Rangers have in store for this season. We should be able to put up a fight later on and really represent for the town of Cumberland. I'm excited to tell you all about it along the way.
As always No Regrets,
-Matt Woolverton