7- (not so) Quick Takes – the abrupt end of season edition

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1.

Most years in the fall, this blog is full of pictures and commentary on my kids running cross country. But it hasn’t been that way this year (or even last year honestly). How come?

First a little back story, my family has been involved with the sport of cross country (and track … but mostly cross country) for about 17 years. Before that, I had all of my kids in competitive swimming. Right before I gave birth to Rosie, one of my biggest clients dropped my transcription service. As a result, I had to cut my expenses very quickly. I felt a little sad about it, but swimming is a very expensive sport, especially for five kids.

Fortunately, that summer I saw a blurb in our parish bulletin about a cross-country team starting. I just told the kids, “Hey kids, forget swimming … we’re runners!” And that’s how it started.

For years, I had three of my four sons running in cross country meeting with varying degrees of success. But they were active, getting great cardio, and making friends. My fourth son even made it to the varsity level on his local high school team and then went on to run in college on an NCAA division 2 school.

Izzy won a ribbon once and she was done.

But Rosie was into it. She ran very well from 3rd to 6th grade and was often in the top 10 of her competitions.

2.

But that all started to change in jr. high when her body started growing and changing. She wasn’t winning medals and she was struggling to stay in the middle of the pack. In 8th grade, she finished the championships in 80th something place. She felt a little discouraged and betrayed by her body. That spring of her 8th-grade year, a female track coach taught her how to work with her bigger yet stronger body and get some speed up. The future looked brighter for her freshman year in high school.

3.

Freshman year of high school was indeed a new experience. The coach that had been there when Noah was on the team had resigned and a new group took over. They were excited, energetic and were really big on team building and support. Rosie managed to be a fast freshman and run on the varsity level. Her confidence rose. But after an amazing first race, she developed hip problems. Being a semi-old hand at this, I took her to the sports doctor. The diagnosis was weak gluteus minimus muscles. After some physical therapy and some counseling to bolster her confidence, – Rosie managed to stay on the varsity and even ran districts. She looked forward to an even better track season.

However, track season was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic. I consider this yet another causality caused by the mismanagement of this pandemic that lead to unintended but real harm to children and teens.

4.

Nonetheless, I took my girl to different local tracks throughout the winter and early spring. She ran while I sat in the heated car waiting for her. She looked up videos on Youtube and made up her own workouts. She was excited for the fall and cross country with her masked friends.

Her sophomore cross country season was shortened and mishandled because of the school board’s misguided attempts at following COVID science. But it didn’t really matter. Rosie turned her ankle in the pre-season and then at one of the practices she turned it again during team practice on one of our very rutted hiking trails. This time she actually pulled some of the bone off of her ankle, a true avulsion fracture. Another trip to the sports medicine doctor came with more rehab and strengthening exercises.

She was just coming back from that injury and was building up speed when she started complaining of her legs burning. We thought maybe it was just her conditioning, but another mom mentioned that maybe she needed iron. So I bought some iron pills at the store and warned Rosie that her stools might become dark brown or black and not to worry. But we didn’t see any difference in her times and she was even dropping out of races with burning legs and heart fluctuation. I actually had her drop out of the last two invitationals because she just wasn’t improving at all and it was making her very sad. She dropped out of her varsity spot and did not make it to districts.

When she vomited blood at the finish line at one of her meets, I got her in right away to see the doctor and then a gastroenterologist. $1000 later we discovered she was pretty anemic. She did run the city championship and earned her letter, but she wasn’t in varsity and she did not go to districts. It was a horrible season.

5.

Track season came, Rosie ran and did pretty well, although she was only competing in a 4 x 800 relay. After track, she was really excited about training again for cross country as a junior. Every morning we were up and out of the house by 7:30 and ready for practice by 7:45ish. She was consistent and strong and only missed a couple of days of training. The assistant coach mentioned to me that Rosie looked strong and good. She was on fire.

The official cross country season started and all of the regular coaches came back. Cross country camp came, which is always a challenge. Their runs increased to two a day on unfamiliar terrain. When they got back they started with multiple hill workouts a week and a lot of speed workouts. People were starting to hurt. But Rosie was spending hours a day on self-care which included draining her legs, icing, stretching, strengthening her ankles and her glutes. Luckily all of her required books for school were available on audio so she could listen to her American Literature while she was doing all of this.

But the last week before the competitions started, Rosie got in the car just sobbing over the pain in her left knee. She was absolutely sure her season was over before it even started! I jumped into advocate mode and was able to get her in immediately with the sports medicine doctor (his associate this time) who diagnosed runner’s knee and gave her a brace and prescribed physical therapy.

Finding a place for PT this time wasn’t easy. All of those knee replacements that got put off in 2020 are happening now and those people are taking up the physical therapy spots. But I persisted and found a free-standing PT center and got her in for the following week. She was strengthening new muscles that support the knee and adding those to her regimen of hip and ankle strengthening. Her knee was actually improving enough that she could run the first invitational of the year, albeit on the JV team. Nonetheless, she placed top 20 and won another medal. Not bad for the first time out after an injury.

6.

We continued our trek to physical therapy twice a week at 7 a.m. A parent will do stuff like that if it will help alleviate your child’s pain and discomfort. Rosie’s leg was getting stronger. Her knee pain was almost completely gone, and she was back training hard with the team. She was looking forward to the next race which had the JV and varsity running together.

One day she mentioned to me that her other knee felt funny. It wasn’t really painful, it just felt weird. I figured that it was maybe just overcompensating for the other leg and since she didn’t really say it was painful, she just kept going to practice.

She was determined to get her varsity spot back. Just before her next race, I saw her put something into her mouth before she headed to the starting line. I didn’t know it at the time, but that other leg was giving her some discomfort and she put a Tylenol in her training bag, just in case. The race started, and Rosie took off, but it wasn’t a great start. Every time Mr. Pete and I saw her she was dropping more places.

We were waiting for her to come around the bend and head to the finish line. We kept waiting and waiting. When the slower girls started to emerge and Rosie didn’t, I started to get worried. A mom sent me a message that Rosie had dropped out of the race and was back in the tent. When I got there she was sobbing. She said her leg just didn’t have any power and she couldn’t even walk on it. The next day she even had to cancel her work at the ice cream store because she couldn’t put any weight on her right leg – the new bad leg!

7.

Again, another trip to the sports medicine doctor, where the staff knows us by sight. After a thorough examination, our doctor diagnosed a tibial stress fracture. The x-rays looked normal, but stress fractures can be funny because they are actually like micro-breaks in the bone. An MRI was ordered. After a week, we finally got insurance approval for that and then after scheduling the MRI at a couple of places, we got a cancellation and confirmation. Rosie had a grade 4d stress fracture.

After 1 1/2 races, her season was over.

There won’t even be a chance for her to try to get her letter because she can’t even start running again until November and then it will have to be a very, very slow build-up process until she can compete.

Postscript: The motto this year for the team is “Success is earned, not given.”

I understand the sentiment but it’s kind of BS. You can earn success and then it can be taken away from you in an instant for any reason at all. Oh, you can look ahead and kind of mitigate disaster, but if you’re not successful or if you lose something you’ve built, it might not be because you didn’t “earn it.” I think a true champion learns from failures and setbacks and plots a course forward after that. So in that sense, I guess Rosie has learned (another) hard life lesson.

I have learned a lesson as well. In fact, it’s one that I keep having to re-learn and that is, you have to stand up and advocate for yourself and your family. When Rosie is finally able to start running (probably in early November) she will have to start very very slowly to be sure that she is completely healed. After that, I think my biggest job as her mother is going to be keeping her as injury-free as possible.

We’ve already addressed the anemia through diet and supplements. We are doing the same with calcium and vitamin D for her fracture, although juggling the needs of both is a little tricky since calcium can block iron absorption. Rosie is doing her part by keeping up with her fitness (swimming and biking) and working her arms and core as well as her ankle, hip, and knee strengthening.

But next year, with the help of her doctor, I’m making some changes with her training.