My long runs are venturing into the region of 18 miles and beyond. With that, I run into no man’s land.

I do my long runs along a major road in the city of Atlanta – Peachtree Road. That is the same Peachtree Road where the annual Peachtree 10k Road Race is held on July 4th.

I use the pretty neat tool from MapMyRun to plot my route for 10 miles along Peachtree Road, going north from where I start. On Sundays, I start running from where I live and I run till I reach the place where MapMyRun’s mile marker tells me should be my half-way mark for the day. I will then cross the road and run on the other side of the road, this time heading home.

Each week, I advance further and further along Peachtree Road. The run commences in the familiarity of Midtown, Peachtree Battle and Buckhead as I leave behind the office towers, high-rise condos, churches and shopping centres that I have passed N times along this 6-mile stretch. The 7th mile is a nice and shady residential stretch into Brookhaven, where sights of fellow runners are common. The beginning of mile number 8 is where the last Starbucks along the route is. That is also where I find my last supermarket.

Half-way through mile 8 and on to mile 9, traces of pedestrians become rare. Landmarks along the way include a construction site, a university campus similar to one taken from a Harry Potter tale but deserted on a Sunday morning because no one is attending classes, fortressed residential communities and also what appears to be woods that mark the perimeter of a golf course. Company is only the sporadic traffic that passes me by and the occasional MARTA train that rumbles along on the opposite side of the road. No generous shades offered by trees along the road. In fact, there are no trees at all. This is the difficult part of the route that I call no man’s land.

2 more long runs to go. I will be venturing further into no man’s land. Somewhere close to the end of the 10 miles, I know there will only be petrol stations where I can quench my thirst. Bear with that for a while, and when I finally get back to where the Starbucks and the supermarket is, that will be where civilisation returns again.

The Olympics have ended and I am now dealing with the withdrawal symptoms. I was following the games almost every night and day, on TV and through websites. Apart from watching nations win medals and with that, also win the right to brag, one other thing caught my attention.

Injury – the nuisance. Being into running myself, I do find injury a nuisance. I am lucky that I have not had any catastrophic injuries that prohibited me from running or taking part in THAT race I have been preparing for. The worst I had was “just” the ITB Syndrome before my first attempt at a marathon, which I managed to finish by walking.

It is important to be sensible while training, too, to reduce the likelihood of getting yourself injured. Often, it all boils down to common sense – train within your means, to put it shortly.

Yet, sometimes, the undesirable can still happen, and it can be worse than the ITB Syndrome – sprains, stress fracture, tendon rupture… Well, if you begin by thinking rationally, it is simple! Just stop training and wait for the injury to recover before starting to run again!

Wouldn’t it be nice if the decision can be kept so simple? Actually, it is us who add the dilemma ourselves. We set goals for ourselves. “This year, I am going to run the Chicago Marathon”. “This race, I want to run a personal best”. When you have been training so hard for your goals and it is now just a matter of weeks before you put yourself to the test, would it not be normal to feel discouraged when you have to give it all up because of that injury? Here, you have to make a decision.

Again, thinking rationally, I would say the sensible decision is to recuperate and wait if time is really not in our favour. There is always the Chicago Marathon next year. If you do not want to wait that long, there is always another marathon taking place earlier in the year too.

So, this is for the runner who is running for his/her own joy. There are plenty of races for this person to run after recovering from the injury. Now what happens when this is a world-renowned competition and it involves top athletes in the world? Having a competition that takes place only once every 4 years probably makes the decision even more difficult.

Two Saturdays ago, I watched Paula Radcliffe compete in the women’s marathon. She is the world record holder and has won every single marathon she ran, except for two. She suffered a stress fracture to her femur 3 months before the Games. The injury disrupted her normal training and she had to train in a pool to maintain her fitness and to give it a go at Beijing. I felt sorry for her as I watched her made it through the last phases of the race in pain. I hope the injury will not affect the rest of her career negatively. After this Games, she still sees hope to give the marathon medal a shot at her home Games in London in 2012 (report from The Telegraph). She will be 38.

Then, there is Liu Xiang, who had to withdraw from from the 110m hurdles because of a recurring injury to one of his Achilles’ tendons. Olympic champion of 2004, he is such an icon in China that his withdrawal drew so much media attention and public reaction. Liu Xiang later told the media that it was a difficult decision on whether to bear with his pain and compete in the heats or to withdraw from the competition. Finally, he felt that his tendon would not be able to take the strain if he did push himself. He had to make the disappointing, but rational decision to pull off. In a letter he addressed to the public, he expressed his belief that he is still capable of competing after nursing his injury and wants to be even faster in future.

We have to make decisions in the face of injury. I believe these athletes are making informed decisions, with their possible gains and losses in mind.

I am no elite athlete, but I want to continue practicing my sport. Injuries, while being a nuisance itself, do make us wiser. There is a Chinese saying 留得青山在，不怕没柴烧. As long as we do not harm our body irreversibly, there will still be chances for us to pursue our goals, even if we have to miss out on a few along the way.