Overcoming setbacks and injuries as masters sprinters

BY BECKI HALL

Some athletes cruise through their careers without suffering any major injuries, balancing training and competing with little niggles and picking up the odd winter cold here and there.

And then some are just plain unlucky.

Kirsty and Stacey certainly be classed as “unlucky”. They’ve both suffered a string of injuries and/ or illnesses – or both! – at different times in their masters athletics journeys.

Their stories are slightly different, but they have one thing in common: overcoming adversity to continue in their quest of competing as V35 sprinters.

Here are their inspirational stories.

Kirsty: successfully battling injuries, illnesses and Gilbert Syndrome

Kirsty Crane began athletics aged 12.

She was a prodigious young sprinter, picking up her first Welsh vest as an U15. The next five years saw her competing and medalling in a flurry of international competitions.

Her success continued throughout her senior career, where she became East Wales champion in four consecutive seasons.

While she of course trained hard, her success was inevitably helped by the fact that, for several years, she didn’t suffer any major illnesses. She hardly missed any training and was rarely ever ill.

And then, seven years ago, in 2017, she tore her MCL and dislocated her knee. She was told by doctors that she’d never run again.

Four years ago, she was admitted to hospital with COVID. She couldn’t work for ten months, and didn't train for sixteen.

Three years ago, she had to have emergency surgery to remove her appendix.

Two years ago, she had her gallbladder removed.

And then last year she was diagnosed with Gilbert Syndrome, which, while for many people is almost symptomless, causes Kirsty extreme fatigue and pain.

Between 2017 and 2023, Kirsty couldn’t set foot on an athletics track. Every time she thought she was ready to try, something else happened.

However, she saw her 2017 consultant’s words of “You’ll never run again”, as a challenge. She realised she wasn’t ready to give up on her dream.

So now, despite everything that life has thrown at her – several years later than she’d intended – she’s made a comeback and is competing in the masters ranks.

Her return has been a success. Now in the V35 age group, she picked up a bronze medal at the Welsh Masters Indoor Championships this year and a pair of silvers in the 100m and 200m at the Midlands Masters Outdoor Athletics Championships.

Kirsty has had to find ways to manage her fatigue levels, using a certain level of trial and error to adjust her training. She now does more gym work than track work, as she finds that she often doesn’t have the physical energy for flat-out sprinting. And it hasn’t been plain-sailing – she admits that, on numerous occasions, she’s felt like she couldn’t carry on with training any more.

But, with the help of her extensive support network of friends, family, and medical professionals, she’s already looking forward to winter training and is excited about how she can perform with a full block of conditioning under her belt.

Kirsty admits that she still finds it difficult to think about the athlete she once was. She finds it upsetting not being able to run as fast as she used to be able to, but says she’s learned to “reset and readjust”. She has now set herself the goal of competing at the European Masters Track and Field Championships, which will take place in Porto in October 2025.

Kirsty's top tips for overcoming injuries and dealing with setbacks

1. If you get injured or ill, don't panic! The additional stress will prolong your recovery.
2. Listen to your body and give it the time it needs. Sometimes, doing nothing is absolutely OK.
3. Be happy with every achievement, no matter how big or small it is.

Stacey: the mental struggle of not achieving your sporting dreams

Stacey Downie first set foot on an athletics track as an U13, but classes herself as a “late developer” when it came to her athletic talents.

She won her first-ever Scottish national 100 and 200m titles aged 19, and in 2008 won the British U23 championships over the half-lap event.

Transitioning into the senior ranks is often a process which athletes find difficult, but Stacey took it in her (very quick) stride, and won several Scottish senior titles between 2007 and 2022. In that time, she represented Scotland 15 times for both individual sprints and relays and holds a unique and impressive claim to fame: she’s the first Scottish athlete to have won national titles in all indoor (60m, 200m, 400m) and outdoor sprints (100m, 200m and 400m) as well as the relays (4x100m, 4x200m and 4x400m).

And she’s managed all of this despite picking up, in her own words, “every injury you could think of”.

Minor tears and tendinopathies have set her back but only caused her to have weeks out of training. However, she missed almost an entire season of training and competing due to Sciatica, suffered chronic Achilles tendinopathy from 2016 to 2018, and a 2020 lockdown run resulted in an avulsion fracture plus ruptured ankle ligaments and six months away from sprinting.

Stacey also has exercise-induced asthma, is prone to seasonal colds and viruses due to a weakened immune system, and has felt the long-term effects of contracting COVID in 2023.

It’s probably unsurprising then that her biggest goal of competing in the 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games sadly didn’t come to fruition, despite being on the cusp of selection.

In fact, she openly admits that she’s not sure whether she will ever mentally get over not being selected for the Commonwealth Games at least once in her career. Despite her long-term Achilles and calf issues, she was ranked 5th in Scotland for 400m in 2017 and missed out on selection for the 4x400m relay by 0.3 seconds.

She enlisted the help of a sports psychologist to help her work through that time, and then, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to change her non-selection, reset mentally and physically to aim for Birmingham 2022.

And, sadly, we know how that turned out.

Now, in her 25th year of competing in the sport, Stacey is a V35 and is carrying on her motto of “always focussing on the next big thing” while carefully managing her training load in an attempt to avoid further injury. She’s had to learn how to “get creative” with cross-training to help her keep fit when she’s felt injuries creeping back in, and, when she does have a spell away from competing, she eases herself back in with some low-key events before chasing championship medals.

But that doesn’t mean she isn’t medalling. In 2022, she won two silvers at the Scottish National Outdoor Championships (“despite being a master”, she jokes). So far this year, Stacey has won the 60m and the 200m at the British Masters Indoor Championships and come second in the 60m at the European Masters Indoor Championships. She also reached the final of the 100m at the recent World Masters Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.

It could have been easy for Stacey to walk away from the sport. Several times. But she’s stuck with it and is now thoroughly enjoying competing at a masters level, which she describes as a “friendly, inclusive environment where everyone truly wants the best competition and results for one another”.

Stacey's top tips for overcoming injuries and dealing with setbacks:

1. Set yourself a big futurte goal to keep your motivation up.
2. Have patience and don't return to training or competition too soon.
3. Build a support network of family, friends, and other athletes who understand what you're experiencing.
4. Recognise that sometimes just being on the start line is a win in itself!

Look out for part two of this blog which will be released very soon, following the stories of three V50+ athletes as they look to come back from major injuries.

About Becki Hall