The following is from Pfitzinger/Latter's Faster Road Racing:
PR's: 5,000m 12:55, 10,000m 26:59
Former U.S. 10,000 meter record holder, five-time individual NCAA champion
Chris Solinksy shocked the running world n 2010. Making his 10,000-meter debut at the Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford University, Solinksy surged away from a top international field to run a stunning 26:59:60. That time not only made the one-time high school phenom from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, the new American record holder, but also the first non-African t orun under 27 minutes at the distance.
Being able to run that fast for that long required years of sustained training. Even with an impressive pedigree that included 15 All-America honors at the University of Wisconsin, Solinsky never stopped believing he was the underdog. "I've always been one of those stubborn runners under the belief that I wasn't as talented as everyone else I was racing against," he says. "I definitely trained harder than a lot of the people I raced in high school and college and after. I kind of just adopted the mentality that I had to train harder."
Flush with success, Solinsky resolved to increase the volume and intensity of his training even more in an effort to achieve even loftier goals, such as medaling at the Olympics. His mileage increased to 120 mils per week. His training paces sped up. The short-term gains were tremendous: Solinksy ran 12:55 for 5,000 meters, the second fastest ever by an American. But the stress of his training soon overwhelmed his body's ability to recover. Still he pushed on, fighting through fatigue and disregarding the feedback his ailing left leg was giving him.
"In 2011, I definitely ignored all those signs of injury," he says. "I set the goal at the beginning of the year that I wanted to be a world champion, and I let that goal kind of blind me to the signals my body was giving me."
The most telling sign was tightness and soreness in his left hamstring. After recovering from an initial strain, Solinksy tripped over his dog while coming down the stairs. He caught himself before falling, but by then the hamstring has already separated from the pelvis.
After surgery and an 18-month hiatus from competition, Solinksy began his comeback in 2013 with a revised set of goals and a new outlook on training. Now he is willing to take an afternoon off from training if his body dictates it. He also believes his experiences have helped his Oregon Track Club teammates. "Since the injury, it's reinforced having to listen to your body and adjusting as you get older, he says. "I think anytime my teammates sees me struggle, it's a good reminder of what being blinded by the greed of success can do to you."
Solinsky's initial comeback had a series of ups and downs, as he worked no transitioning to more road racing and learned what his surgically repaired hamstring could handle. Facing his own racing mortality also made him reassess his love of the sport and his place in it. He may never again break an American record on the track, but that doesn't mean he's given up his dreams. "The goals may change, but you've just got to take it day by day, week by week, month by month," he says.