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| THEN: Aaron Bartnik winning the 1999 MSHSL AAXC Championship. Photo by Dennis Hahn |
A healthy Aaron Bartnik led the Gopher men's cross country team from start to finish this year. During his interview Bartnik talks about dealing with potential career threatening injuries. Using a metronome app to help him stay healthy, his last HS XC race, what he learned from this year's experiences, and his goals for the future.
Down the Backstretch:
Your junior year seems to be a good year for you. You won the MSHSL XC
championship as a junior at Eden Prairie. This year you had a breakout season
leading the Gophers. Aside from being injury free what helped you be successful
this cross country season?
Aaron
Bartnik: Being patient has been important. I had to accept that I wasn’t going
to see exceptional results immediately after my first injury-free season. In
addition to this, I have prioritized a healthy lifestyle. I am never going to
get the most out of myself as an athlete if I am not eating well, getting enough
sleep, and staying healthy.
DtB: How did you cope
with the frustration of being seemingly cursed with stress fractures? Why did
you keep coming back from the injuries? I’ve been told that there were points
where you considered quitting.
AB: It was a
couple difficult years of continuous injuries. I tried as hard as I could to
stay positive, but it got difficult at times. After spending an hour or more
cross training every day for a couple years in a row, I started to question
things. So yes, I most certainly considered quitting. I came to the University
of Minnesota to run, not to aqua jog.
While I had
fantastic high school cross country experiences, I often wondered how good I
could be at the next level. I didn’t know how I would develop with the increase
in training that comes with collegiate sports, and I wanted to test the limits
of my body. Could I be one of the best on my team? One of the best in the Big
Ten? One of the best in the nation?
NCAA athletics is a once in a lifetime
opportunity, and I knew I would never be able to answer those questions if I
moved on and gave up on my collegiate running career. My main motivation for
persevering came from this internal desire to be the best athlete I could be. In
addition to this, I wanted to give back to the University that gave so much to
me. Being a Division I athlete is a huge privilege, and I wanted to represent
the school that has made my college experiences so great.
DtB: The solution for
you has been working to change your stride. Changing one’s “mechanics” has been
in the news a lot of late within the distance running community, not to lessen
the chance for injury but on the premise that if you can become more efficient,
you’ll use less energy and be able to run faster. How does one go about
changing one’s stride? Is it something that is easy to change or did it take
some time to feel comfortable with your “new stride?”
AB: It was a
difficult task and I had to be patient with it; I am thankful for being
introduced to physical therapist Blake Butler at TRIA
Orthopaedic. Blake was able to identify numerous inefficiencies in my stride,
including but not limited to a low turnover rate and a lack of activating my
glutes.
My stride
rate was at about 160 foot strikes per minute, and as a result of this slow
turnover rate, I had a lot of vertical movement. We suspected this was the
primary stressor of my bone related injuries. My goal was to get my stride rate
up to 180.
I installed a metronome app on my phone, set it to a tempo that was
uncomfortably quick but reasonably achievable, and I matched my foot steps to
the beat. Over about two months I worked my way up to 180 beats per minute.
It
was a mentally exhausting exercise. I had so much to focus on with the movement
of my own body, that the repetition of the metronome didn’t bother me too much.
In addition to the issue of turnover, I performed a set of muscle memory
exercises every day that taught me to activate my glutes when my heels hit the
ground.
DtB: Do you have to
consciously think about it? Do you find yourself reverting back to your “old
stride” at all? When you get tired?
AB: It comes
pretty naturally now, but it is definitely still a work in progress. I have a
little mental checklist that I go through every run to make sure I am doing all
the little things right. And still
today, over a year after changing my stride, I will still occasionally use the
metronome and focus entirely on form for a run.
DtB: If somebody who had
watched you last year and then looked again this year would the change in your
“mechanics” be noticeable or are they more subtle than that?
AB: I think
it would be very noticeable if they saw me on an everyday run, but maybe not as
much in races. Turnover naturally increases with pace, so I always had decent
turnover in races. Considering that races only count for a small percentage of
my total running, it is what I am doing in practice that is more important when
it comes to injury prevention.
DtB: Do you have any
advice for other runners dealing with stress fractures?
AB: When
dealing with the mental side of injuries, setting goals is important. It was
helpful for me to remind myself of my goals every day. On a personal level, you
have to know what things you are willing to making sacrifices for. If you are
passionate enough about your goal, you will be able to persevere through any
injury.
On the
physical side of things, I think it is important to find the root cause of the
problem. Stress fractures commonly stem from poor running form, a muscular
imbalance, or dietary issues. If you don’t have a plan to overcome the injury,
consult help. While the stress fracture will heal with time, there is a good
chance it will happen again unless you find the underlying problem.
DtB: Both your high
school and college coaches have noted that you were often able to produce top
performances on very limited training. Bruce Mortenson says he thought your
third place finish in the MSHSL XC Championships was more impressive than when
you won State your junior year. I would guess that being able to do that would
elicit both hope and frustration. Sort of “What could I do if I was ever
healthy?”
AB: I
actually consider myself someone who needs a big base of aerobic training to run
well. I firmly believe in the importance of training with consistency. It wasn’t
until almost a year of staying injury-free when I started to really feel like
myself racing again.
The state meet my senior year was an exception. To this
day, I am extremely proud of myself for that race. The metatarsal stress
fracture I developed about a month before the state meet had limited my training
to at most a couple short runs a week. I was probably hurting more at 4K of that
race than I was at the finish line of any other race that season.
Plus, I lost
to two extremely talented athletes in Adam Zutz and Cole O’Brien. You can always
play the “What if I were healthy” game, but I understood that injuries are a
natural occurrence in running, and that I would get back to performing at a top
level with time.
DtB: The NCAA
Championships this year was another of those “double edged sword” experiences.
You made it to Nationals. You were within striking distance of making All
American, but the body wouldn’t respond. Was it just the illness the week prior
to the race? Is there a clear answer as to why you weren’t able to make the
move you wanted to in that race?
AB: I do
believe the illness was the primary cause of my sub-par performance. I was ready
to go mentally, but running a 10K against the top runners in the NCAA is no easy
task healthy, let alone sick.
DtB: It was your first
chance at the NCAA XC champs. What did you learn that might help you get back
there again next year and get the result you want?
AB: Seeing
all the top-caliber runners before, during, and after the race, my biggest
takeaway is that everyone is human. I think it is important to not limit
yourself when comparing your performance with others; not a single athlete in
the NCAA is unbeatable no matter what Flotrack says. Plus, my disappointment in
this year’s NCAA result will only motivate me to achieve more next year. The
plan is to qualify for nationals with the team next year, and for me to
significantly improve on my performance.
DtB: What are the goals
for the upcoming track season, aside from staying healthy?
AB: I
definitely want to break 14 minutes in the 5K this year, but more importantly,
my biggest goal is to be as competitive as possible within the Big
Ten.
DtB: Are you thinking of
running post collegiately or is it too early to make that kind of
decision?
AB: It is too
early to tell. I know very little about post-collegiate running, and I definitely didn’t go to college with plans of running competitively after
graduation. But, if I continue to develop as an athlete, and feel that I have
something to prove after my collegiate eligibility, then I will most certainly
consider it.
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| Now: Bartnik racing on the track. Photo courtesy of U of MN |
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