Running in Alignment
Friday, April 17th, 2009
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As most of you know, I was struck with lower right back pain after a sneeze at the end of last year. They diagnosed the lower right back pain as sciatica on December 30th. Since then I have been going to see my chiropractor Dr. Krieg. It’s been just over 3 months now and I’m feeling really good and the lower right back pain is all gone.
For a while there I wasn’t so sure how this was all going to work out. Dr. K was aligning my upper cervical vertebrae when all my pain was lower right back pain creeping down into my right leg. It didn’t really make a lot of sense to me, and the sciatica was intense and painful. But I trusted that the doctor knew what he was doing, and he explained that if he didn’t start by getting my head and neck into alignment, nothing else would ever be quite right, and even if we fixed the lower right back pain for now, it could re-occur.
Once I was past the worst of the lower right back pain and I got the go ahead to start running again several weeks ago, I was ecstatic to get out there and hit the pavement. But as soon as I started running I found that my right calf muscle would get really tight and it caused the runs to be way less enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong, I was still glad to be able to get out there and run again once the chance of re-injury was past, pain or no pain. But the tight calf muscle hampered my enthusiasm somewhat.
Well it’s now been over a month since I’ve been able to run again, and each day that I run I can feel myself getting stronger and faster. And I haven’t had the lower right back pain come back.
But I must admit for a while I was wondering what he had done to me! Was being in alignment messing up my running? It sure felt that way my first few weeks.
When I mentioned this to Dr. K, he told us a story about a guy he treated who was ranked in the top ten nationally in archery. He had taken up archery later in life and had done very well, and was hoping to gain the title of National Champion, but could never place higher than about fourth place in the national events.
After Dr. K started adjusting him, he found that he could not hit the broad side of a barn. He asked “What the heck have you done to me?!” Dr. Krieg told him that since he had been living out of alignment for so long, his body had compensated all these years for it, but now he was getting his body back into the alignment where he needed to be. It would take his body and his shooting some time to adjust to the new (proper) alignment.
Some time after that he was shooting better then he ever had. And the guy went on to win a national archery championship! Had he chosen to just live with his body out of alignment, he probably would have never realized his true potential.
With that story in mind, I realized that my body had to learn how to run again with the correct alignment, instead of the way it had been running (13.5 lbs heavy on the right side) for years and years. So now that I’m running in alignment, I guess that means I’m on my way to realizing my true potential. Hey! Maybe I’ll break my PB of 2:02 in the half marathon this year. 
How ‘bout it?
-Vision Runner
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