PROLOTHERAPY HELPS ME COMPLETE MY DREAM OF RUNNING
THE BOSTON MARATHON
Ross Hauser, M.D.

Ross (In Yellow during the Marathon)

I have long dreamed of running the Boston Marathon and finally got my chance. But as the Aprili 18th race day approach my dream nearly turned into a nightmare as significant back pain put my race plans into jeapardy.

My back was killing me and I could barely walk, Marion, my wife, was very concerned that if I continued to train or even run in the race, I would be hurting myself even more.

The Wednesday before the marathon I went for a run with my training buddies Alan Parungao and Tim Kenny. I had to stop after 1.5 miles because my back felt awful.  A few hours later I had my associate give me Prolotherapy to my left lower back, primarily my sacroiliac joint.  

I stopped training completely for the next five days and went to Boston. Fortunately, my back felt awesome throughout the marathon.  It is now one week later and it still feels great.  Prolotherapy is amazing.  Even after doing it on patients for 13 years, the power of Prolotherapy still amazes me.  I crossed the finish line at the Boston Marathon in 4 hours 11 minutes, much slower then my personal best of 3:46. But here is no such thing as a bad run and considering the amount of back pain I was suffering, this was a good run.

Runs that don't meet your expectations give you a chance to reflect and learn.  The first four miles of the Boston Marathon is all downhill.  I made a technical error.  My running form was too straight doing these downhills and as such I used up my quad energy so I didn t have anything left by mile 18.  I will say this though, Boston lived up to its reputation.  The crowds lined the whole 26.2 miles of the course.  I could feel the history in the race.  I would definitely consider doing this race again now that I know what not to do.

Alan Culpepper the 2004 Olympic Trials champion, who ran Boston this year, said the  Boston Marathon course was actually tougher then the Olympic Marathon course in Greece.  This puts an even bigger accomplish on what Dr. Hausers training partner Tim Kenny accomplished.  Tim breezed through the Boston Marathon course in a remarkable 3 hours 10 minutes, thus, qualifying for next year's Boston Marathon race.  Tim is an amazing athlete.  He actually had a cold and wasn't even recovered from a previous race he did.  

Because of our Ironman Training we only had one 20 "miler" done coming into this race.  It just shows you what tremendous shape he is in.  Tim and I will each get to show what triathlon shape they are in as they compete in the DeSoto American-Triple Team Triathlon Competition May 25-28.