Injuries force cross-country Mustang to change routine

After losing heralded runners John Rivera to the University of Mississippi and Bryce Easton to the University of Tampa, the Lakewood Ranch cross-country team enters 2017 in dire need of a star.

Rivera and Easton, in part, helped guide the Mustangs to a second-place finish at last year’s Class 4A championships in Tallahassee.

This year, Lakewood Ranch returns a strong nucleus of seniors Andrew Dean and Kyle Wray, junior Johnny Reid and sophomore Calvin Walker.

If Mustangs coach Bryan Thomas is looking for a consistent leader from that group to push the team, it might just be Wray.

That’s not a given, though. Wray, who also runs track for Lakewood Ranch, has battled stress injuries in his legs and feet since his freshman year. At first, he thought it was a random pain at the top of his right foot. He ran through it, until he attempted an 800-meter race at Manatee High’s concrete track.

“It was a lot of pounding, and I heard a little pop, I felt it,” Wray said. “After that race, I could hardly walk from the pain.”

Wray suffered a stress fracture of the third metatarsal in his right foot. He recovered, not thinking the injury was anything other than a freak occurrence. He started worrying more when his sophomore cross-country season was affected by another stress injury, this time in his lower leg.

Not thinking it was the same thing, due to the difference in location, he tried to push through. It only made things worse.

Doctors don’t know what, exactly, caused these first injuries. Wray’s bone density is a bit low, he said, but not low enough to cause worry. His calcium levels are above average. His blood work was fine. Now that he’s had them, though, he’s more susceptible to them returning, he said.

To combat this, Wray has changed his entire running routine.

“It started with changing shoes,” Wray said. “I’m running in Hokas now, which are softer (compared to other running shoes). I don’t run every day anymore. I run every other day, just to give my bones and body the rest they need. I run pretty much all on grass, even workouts that wouldn’t normally be on grass.

“There’s a lot of cross-training in the pool. If I do two-a-days, the second run can’t be on ground. I also use the Zero Runner. It’s a machine that allows you to have no pounding.

“These are my best friends, so I don’t want them to be in a position where they can’t succeed because I did something dumb, or trained too hard. There’s other ways to get where I want to go.”

His tolerance for pain is high at this point, so is putting his body through this worth what running gives him back?

“Each time I’ve come back and realized you get more out of it than you think,” Wray said. “Coach Thomas is very good about not only improving us as runners but as people.”

At last year’s championships, Wray finished the 5,000-meter run in 16:55.25. He was 42nd overall, and best of the Mustangs returning runners.

If the Mustangs want to finish top-five in the state again, they’ll need depth runners to develop.

Thomas listed Rivera’s junior brother, James Rivera, as someone he thinks could develop, alongside junior Dylan Wellard and sophomore Kevin Irwin.

“They hopefully will be there as legitimate fifth, sixth and seventh runners for us,” Thomas said. “That makes it fun and challenging.”