Dathan Injured
Imagine my surprise when I read in yesterday's Running Shorts that
Dathan Ritzenhein has a stress fracture in his right femur. Only 15
months ago (Daily Opinion on 06/15/01) I wrote:
"After reading Chris Lear's "Running with the Buffaloes," I would
lay 50-50 odds that Ritzenhein will be injured by the time he is a
sophomore at the University of Colorado. Lear's account of the CU
men's 1998 cross-country season cites athlete after athlete who
become injured, mostly due to overtraining. IT band and stress
fracture injuries appear as often as black and white makeup at a
KISS concert. Ritzenhein may not be over-raced at CU, but it is
likely he will be overtrained."
I received plenty of emails from folks defending the Colorado XC coach
Mark Wetmore and the CU training program. I am sure they will
respond to Ritzenhein's injury in one of two ways. Either, "It's not
Wetmore's fault; it must be Ritzenhein doing too much extra training that
the coach didn't know about" or "That injury is only one data point, and is
not indicative of the CU program as a whole." Unfortunately,
Ritzenhein's injury seems to be only the latest in a long string of overuse
injuries prevalent at CU, and perhaps many other collegiate programs.
Mike Schieffer