Marathoner Bob Kempainen, now a physician, ran through stomach illness to win the Olympic Trials marathon. A physician’s gift for physical and mental discipline? Likely so.

“Physician, heal thyself” is a quote of a Proverb spoken by Jesus in the book of Luke 4:23. It means, quite simply, that people wanted him to do miracles in his hometown like those they had heard about in other places.

But Jesus didn’t fall for such tricks, demanding proof of the miraculous. And neither should we.

The meaning of this bit of scripture hit home as I was riding the elevator at a hospital with a physician who wore a stability boot on his ankle. “What’s up with your foot?” I asked.

“Achilles,” he said.

“Do you mind if I ask how it happened?”

“It was progressive,” he replied. “Started with a torn plantar fascia and sooner or later the achilles went.”

Ignoring the warning signs

Many of us have been there in our running and riding. Ignore the warning signs and pay the price. Favor one injury and pick up another. That’s called a compensatory injury. Trying to compensate for one ache can lead to another, sometimes worse problem.

Compensatory injury 

I once strained the achilles on my right leg pretty badly by refusing to use crutches when I was rehabilitating my left knee after surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Humped all over a soccer tournament on one leg basically, and by the end of the weekend, trouble sprang up in my right achilles. Dopey, I know. But we all try to heal ourselves the wrong way sometimes. Hoping for miracles. Or acting like they’ve already happened.

Let healing occur

You have to allow your body to heal. Even doctors are prone to forget that when it is their own bodies they are trying to heal. One orthopedic surgeon I know tore his ACL and had it fixed by his surgical partner, staying awake to watch the surgery while it was in progress. Talk about ‘physician, heal thyself!’

Yet he tried to come back too soon from surgery and tore the other ACL in the process. So his partner fixed that one too, while his fellow surgeon stayed awake again to watch.

Doctor, doctor, gimme the news…

My family doctor is a runner. Or at least he was. He cherished running the Marine Corps Marathon each year, for at one time he was a physician in the Marines.  But as he aged the training got tougher to take, as did pushing away from the table. His increased load along with a slight weight gain around the middle added up to trouble. First his knee went bad, then a hamstring. He hobbled through 26.2 miles nonetheless. But that was that. His lower back went out, and a disc slipped a little too. “Now I just spin on the bike at the health center,” he chuckled. “I was too damn dumb to know when to back off.”

We’re all human

We’re all human. Even our physicians. That same doctor didn’t quite make the right call on my own knee and hip problems a few years ago and deterred me from getting physical therapy that probably could have identified some weakness problems. With the right PT, I might have prevented even the ACL tear.

Defying human limitations

Yet I also know many physicians who seem to be able to defy the common limitations of the typical athlete. An Ironman doctor I know rides his bike like a maniac, dialing it up to 26 miles per hour for miles at a time. He can’t climb hills for shit, but he sure can go on the flat.

Running with him was an interesting exercise as well. His stride is forceful, not elegant. Yet he covers those 26.2 miles with determined steadiness. As a runner, he’s a grinder, not a glider. Whatever works, right?

The amazing example of marathoner (and doctor) Bob Kempainen

I think back to the Olympic Trials where then-resident physician in-training Bob Kempainen threw up during the race yet went on to win. The only way I can figure he had the toughness to puke and keep going was the discipline learned in residency. Physicians spend 80 hour weeks on barely any sleep taking care of patients. When it comes to taking care of themselves, life seems like a cinch. And so he ran through sprays of his own Gatorade to win the Olympic Trials. Gutsiest performance I’ve ever seen. Pun intended.

It’s a unique perspective our physicians have on the world. We can be grateful for their expertise, their specialty training and their amazing collaboration to help us all get through life, and hopefully heal us as we run and ride. I’ve always admired their ability to serve in their practice far beyond what most people can take. Long hours. Difficult, draining time at the operating table. Long lines of complaining, sick patients. We should all be thankful for doctors. Sure, there are a few pompous pricks among them. But maybe, just maybe, they’ve earned the right.

But most of them are kind and considerate. Except when it comes to their own injuries. Then they can be too tough on themselves. It’s hard to pull off miracles so close to home.