However flawed my beliefs about fitness may be, I believe the ability to run even a short distance is a hallmark of being fit. I want to delay my loss of that as long as possible, even if it’s at a slow pace. 

I believe the same about doing a pushup, a pullup, squats, and basic rotational and core exercises, also known as the basic movement patterns of the body. We can push and pull with our upper body, we can push and pull with our legs, and we can twist at our pelvis. Every exercise, really, including mountain biking, is a variation of these basics. 

But evolutionarily speaking, humans were made to run, and that is more important to me than an inability to enjoy mountain biking. Which is why last summer, for the first time in my life, when I couldn’t run without feeling like my femur was banging into my hip socket sans cartilage, it felt like a little red siren spinning in my head.

Rewind to Summer 2024

Last spring, I left my post as an editor for Singletracks. For six years, my career and much of my personal life focused on mountain biking, and believe it or not, I was ready for something different. Different fitness challenges and different ways to spend time outside. 

Running was an obvious choice. It’s not easy, but it is simple. All you need is a pair of running shoes, and once you have a route, or even a treadmill, the hardest part is making yourself run. 

As I committed to something loosely resembling a training plan and slowly ramped up my running volume, it got easier. The first ten minutes, when your heart is trying to pump enough blood and circulate oxygen to muscles, when you really want to just stop and do anything else, became a smaller hurdle to jump on every run.

My mile-per-hour time slowly lowered, from eleven, to ten, to nine, and damn, I was starting to feel like a pretty smooth and capable runner. My wife and I have run the Bolder Boulder 10K on Memorial Day weekend a number of times, and we signed up again. After that, I looked at other events, like a trail half-marathon in August. 

I’d been running about half my miles on dirt, but with that goal, I needed more. And since I was steadily progressing, that’s exactly what I did. 

At this point, any pain in my hips was barely noticeable, if at all, until two things happened. I ran six miles of trail one day, with climbs and descents, and I did yoga the next. While my hip muscles had been overworked without me realizing it, the yoga likely overstretched them, sending them into a frenzy. 

Physical therapy, round one

I knew something wasn’t right. I took a week off from running and tried an easy pace on the treadmill at the gym. It was still too painful. Each time my foot struck the belt, I felt a jolt in my hip. I took another week off and tried again only to run into the same problem. Even walking down the sidewalk, I could feel something pulling in my hips. So I talked to my doctor and got a referral to physical therapy. 

I wasn’t on my PT’s table long before he knew where to start. My glute medius and minimus were overworked and over-tight. These muscles are responsible for single-leg/pelvic stability during running, which is essential since you’re basically on one of two legs the entire time. And unfortunately, it’s not something that mountain biking really calls upon the same way that running or hiking does. 

When we mountain bike, our hips drive downward to pedal, and maybe together to one side as we corner and our hips rotate, but they don’t have to move singularly in different planes like someone would when trying to run up or down an uneven trail.  

The answer tasted like medicine. They were the exercises I purposefully ignored: clamshells, which made me feel like I was in front of a TV playing a Jane Fonda exercise video, and a plethora of other hip abduction moves that were emasculating compared to things like dumbbell presses and barbell deadlifts. 

In my bout of knee-waving movements, another of which was called “sassy hips”, I was ordered not to run until we strengthened and stretched my tired, weak glute muscles. What I could do, and what my PT hailed as a terrific, low-impact exercise, was cycling. 

Fortunately, it was still the midst of summer with plenty of dry trails ahead. 

One hurdle after another

After my sassy hips and my clamshells, I progressed to box side steps, pistol squats, ski jumpers, and other dynamic hip power and stability exercises, and my strength increased every week. At weeks six and seven of PT, I worked in some short runs, and my hips felt better than ever. 

But, before I finished therapy for one overuse injury caused by running, another crept up. 

“I have this pain mainly in the front of the ball of my right foot,” I told my PT. “It doesn’t hurt when I run, but it hurts like hell after.” 

Every morning, I woke up and hobbled downstairs, clutching the handrail to make coffee and let my dog out. If this is what getting old feels like, I wondered, what happens in two years when I actually turn 40?

My PT gave me a quick diagnosis of plantar fasciitis. I finished therapy for my hips a week later, tried to mend it on my own for a few weeks, and took a break to help my wife have a baby. Then I got another referral for six more weeks of PT. 

Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation in a band of fascia between your heel and toes. It’s common in runners and people who spend a lot of time on their feet or are overweight. I believe the cause of mine was multifactorial.

One, my main source of endurance exercise, mountain biking, did little to help me develop ankle stability. Our ankles may pivot up when we drive our pedals on a climb, or down to help with bike handling on a descent, but there isn’t much asked of them otherwise. 

Two, running, like other sports, takes time to develop the required muscles. I thought I was slowly ramping up my volume, but it still may have been too much. 

Three, proper running shoes are paramount, and my zero-drop, minimalist shoes were not enough for me with underdeveloped ankle and foot stability muscles, and a high arch that was prone to collapse and pronate.

By chucking any and all flat-soled shoes in my closet in the trash, getting supportive shoes, stretching my calves daily, and strengthening the muscles in my feet and around my ankles, I have mostly kicked plantar fasciitis after months of pain.

I’m not sure which injury was worse. With my hips, I couldn’t run, but I could still walk. Plantar fasciitis, though very common, can make even walking an excruciating task.

On running vs. mountain biking

Last year, I interviewed another Singletracks contributor and exercise physiologist, Jenny Corso, about the translation between running and mountain biking. A lot of that story, and the one you’re reading now, can be summed up with this quote from Corso: 

“Cardiovascularly, they may help [each other]. Biomechanically, they’re very different,” she said. In other words, your heart and lungs might not know the difference, but your hips and ankles will. 

Corso hailed running as far better for bone density development than mountain biking, because of the impact. Unfortunately, it’s a double-edged sword because the impact can cause overuse injuries. There are a lot of statistics quickly culled by a web search, but this study on NIH says, “27% to 70% of recreational and competitive distance runners sustain an overuse running injury during any 1-year period.” 

Another takeaway from my chat with Corso is that running tends to burn more calories because it is more demanding. As I get older and have more responsibility, I am OK with choosing the hard way if it’s more time efficient. But I don’t think that is a fully applicable philosophy in the case of exercise, because it may completely sideline you if you’re not prepared. 

This year, I still have running goals in mind, but I’d also like to feel like my body is in a stable place for the better part of a year, and not in a rebuilding phase. I’ll likely focus on shorter, more frequent runs and continue building a strong foundation. 

That means more mountain biking — my lifeline to burn calories, be outside with friends, and build endurance. While it may not have prepared me to be a runner, the only time it’s really hurt me is when I’ve clipped a tree or gone over the bars. It’s a risk I’m willing to take if it means staying in motion.