Injury won’t stop runner from being there for team
There’s a band on Jeff Degenhardt’s mind these days, but so far, it’s not playing sweet music.
Degenhardt, a senior at West Valley, has struggled with his iliotibial band, referred to by runners as the IT band, a band extending from the hip to the knee that can become inflamed running down hills—an everyday occurrence for a cross-country runner.
“I missed a week of practice while my family was on vacation,” Degenhardt explained. “When I got back, I ran 10 miles harder than I should have. It was kind of sore, but I decided to just push through it.”
The basic treatments for an inflamed IT band are ice, stretching and, most importantly, rest. But when you’re “the heart and soul of the team,” as his coach, Jim McLachlan refers to Degenhardt, rest isn’t the easiest state for a determined runner to be in.
On a team that is struggling through some nagging injuries, Degenhardt is a senior leader.
“He’s not our best runner, but he’s the kind of kid who holds the team together,” McLachlan said. “He’s one of our leaders.”
Degenhardt was instrumental in helping the Eagles to an eighth-place finish at last year’s State 3A meet, crossing the finish line third behind graduated senior Cody Tylock and this year’s No. 1 runner, Curtis Fitzhugh, in 17 minutes, 18 seconds over a fast course in Pasco.
The senior will be with the team this weekend when it runs in the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif. — a trip the team has worked to pay for as a team, manning a concession stand at Spokane Indians home games over the summer.
But, Degenhardt said, he is not pushing himself too hard.
“I ran five miles (Monday),” he said. “That’s the farthest I’ve run in about a month. I felt pretty good after — a little sore, but that’s pretty normal.
“I’m listening to my body and still trying to run and keep up with my teammates. That’s hard to do, but I’m going to be there for them in the end. I’ll be back by the time it counts. We’re going through a tough time right now with a bunch of people injured. But we’re going to tough through it.”
Degenhardt ices the knee religiously and stretches daily. He also attends physical therapy sessions where the knee is stressed and subjected to electric shock stimulation to improve healing.
It’s all part of what you have to do to be a runner; it’s not just about gutting out a three-mile run.
“Some people think we just go out and run, but there’s more to it than that,” Degenhardt said. “You need upper-body strength to help you get up hills — the coaches teach us that we need to use our arms to drive us up the hills. Even more than that, you need a lot of mental toughness. You have to push through everything: the pain, the fatigue. You have to keep on fighting.
“My freshman year I wasn’t very good at running. And then I wrestled. I’m convinced that made me a lot more mentally tough. It made me want to compete better in cross country, and at the same time, cross country was getting me into better shape for wrestling. It was helping me get down to a lower weight so that I wouldn’t have to work so hard to make weight every week.”
Actually, he said, there was one big wrestling match after his freshman season on the cross country team that was important to his running career.
“After my freshman year, I thought I might switch and go out for football,” he admitted. “Then I thought, well, maybe I should do cross country one more year, and if I don’t like it, I’ll play football for sure. Well, my sophomore year is where I started to get good and realized I had a talent for running and for this sport. I was hooked.”
Part of what will help the Eagles get through their current spate of injuries is what helped hook Degenhardt.
“Curtis was talking to one of our assistant coaches the other day, and he said we’re not a team,” Degenhardt explained. “He’s said we’re more like one big family. And he’s right. My teammates, the coaches, everybody here has a really good attitude, even on our roughest days.”