NATIONAL RUNNING DAY. HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR SCAR TISSUE LATELY?

"I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains, I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain. There's more than one answer to these questions pointing me in crooked line." ~The Indigo Girls  

"Scar tissue that I wish you saw." ~The Red Hot Chili Peppers

National Running Day! To me, this is like St. Patrick's day is for alcoholics, just another day to do our thing but reflect more on doing it. Fortunately, I have just started running after a 45 day lay off due to injury.

I went on my second run of the week. First one was a 3 miler, and today it was 4.

I was going to write a long story about my injury, but I will try to sum it up quickly.  Doctors are just people dressed up as doctors. Sometimes they say you have a tear in your quad, but it's an old tear that has healed over from the many weeks in a row you've already taken off running over the past year and a half.  That white mass they see on the MRI is scar tissue. Or it could be a smudge of spilled chobani yogurt. Either way, it is not a muscle that is still torn, even if their doctorate degree tells you so.

The tear in my quad was there indeed, but now it’s a muscle-hampering burning golf-ball sized piece of scar tissue. I learned that after many adventures to find a cure. I visited dark alleys, a couple of fortune tellers, a sage on a mountain top with poor wireless connections, but the best help I've found is at Tri-Covery massage right in my back yard.

For the last 3 weeks, I've been getting the scar tissue massaged out of me. When I say massage, you may think it is comforting, but it is painful. An elbow digs and grinds into the spot and it slowly dissipates. I laugh to make it hurt less, and do my best to not tighten and fight it. I can feel it in there, like a little baby alien ready to burst out of me, only it is fading, and will soon be gone. 

I would never have discovered this problem had I not asked for help from other runners. Advice from runners can be a tricky thing. The only thing more annoying than "always gives advice Runner Guy" is "always one-ups you Runner Guy". But I’ve been hitting up others openly, including blogger TyRunman and  Cait Chock and getting much needed thoughts.

My best thinking got me here, so I needed help. 

Cait Chock, the only creator of a comic book designed for runners on the earth,  was one of the first who mentioned the scar tissue thing. This was something the doctors and specialists didn't even bother with, for they were too busy trying to fix my knee. ("It's not the knee, it's the muscle tissue," I said to more than one doctor, but the myth of poor runner's knee persists).

Of course, this all could be a false positive, but every time I walk into Tri-Covery massage the burning mass of molten evil ju-ju is getting smaller and smaller, and it has helped more than the mutliple doctors I have seen. Had I followed the Orthopedic specialist from the renowned Core Institute, I would just be resting and nothing would change.

If you are within a stones throw of Novi, Run, don't walk over to Tri-Covery Massage. Kelsey has been the one working on me and I've made promises to pay her multiple thousands if she gets me running again (shhhh, I can't afford that, but don't let her know) but all their staff are wicked smart and good.

Thanks to them, to Cait, I'm hoping I can complain about regular niggles and not this one ever again.