Anne Hird is back after overcoming adversity

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, November 25, 2004

BY CAROLYN THORNTON
Journal Sports Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Anne Sullivan Hird plans to head out the front door of her Washington Park home at about 9 o'clock this morning to do something that for so many years she could only dream about.

She plans to retrace the steps of the 7-mile route through Roger Williams Park that she and two friends ran together 17 years ago, also on Thanksgiving.

The two runs couldn't be any more different, though.

Back in 1987, Hird was a promising young runner with Olympic aspirations getting in her last training run before leaving for the Philadelphia Marathon.

Today, the 45-year-old is running simply because she finally can.

She has debated whether she should go running today, wondering if she is tempting fate by returning to the place where her competitive career was cut short and where her life was changed forever. But she ultimately decided to go ahead with it for that very reason.

"I need to do it," she said. "I need to run the route to put it in the right place in my mind. I think overcoming any trepidation puts things right for me. I am absolutely bound and determined to run past the spot where I was hit as sort of my defiance, my way of saying I'm not going to let it get me down."

At 28, Hird had established herself as one of the country's up-and-coming distance runners.

The Bay View Academy All-Stater, collegiate All-American and two-time American record holder (10 miles and 30K) was the first American woman, fourth overall, at the Boston Marathon in 1984. She also recorded victories at the Toronto and Ocean State Marathons and qualified for the Olympic Trials.

After a short break to give birth to her twin daughters, Erica and Alison, Hird was ready to kick her running career back into full throttle.

But on Thanksgiving morning in 1987, those plans came to an abrupt halt. With just one mile to go on her training run, Hird was hit by a car driven by a joy-riding 14-year-old. (A first-time offender, the boy was never charged and to this day has never offered an apology.)

Miraculously, Hird suffered no head or spinal injuries despite being dragged underneath the car. And a fracture she suffered in her lower leg healed. But severe nerve damage in her leg remained. Her tendency to develop excessive scar tissue complicated the issue.

"My head would say, 'Do it,' but the message would stop halfway down," Hird said of her attempts to work the muscles in her lower leg.

The normal muscle swelling that comes with any kind of exercise would only exacerbate the problem, "and then I would fall on my face," she said.

Hird quickly came to terms with the fact that her running career was over, and being the realist that she is, she didn't spend much time dwelling upon what might have been.

"I could have come out of it a whole lot worse," she said. "I had a whole lot to be thankful for, so I wasn't going to sit and dwell on what I couldn't do."

Instead, Hird channeled her energy and her competitive drive into raising her family and pursuing a career in education. An assistant professor of educational technology at Bridgewater State College, she has stayed connected to her sport, by sharing her vast knowledge as a high school track and cross country coach, most recently at her alma mater.

But even in the absence of any strenuous exercise, Hird has had to endure years of pain and discomfort related to her injury. Ironically, it was her last bout that actually led to her return to running.

In 2002, Hird developed Plantar Fasciitis -- severe tendinitis -- in her right foot from so many years of over-compensating for her injured left leg.

The normal course of treatment -- ice, anti-inflammatories and physical therapy -- did not help, and Hird was not a good candidate for surgery because of her tendency to develop scar tissue.

So in January of 2003, her podiatrist, Dr. Bruce Werber, suggested extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT), a non-invasive technique, originally developed to break up kidney stones.

"It's very much like a high-powered ultrasound," said Hird. "It projects very targeted shock waves into the stagnant injury that is not healing and worsens it in the specified area enough to jump-start the healing process."

After being on crutches for more than a month, Hird was off them within a couple of days of the ESWT treatment. Three to four months later, the Plantar Fasciitis was healed.

However, there was still the question of how to prevent it from happening again.

Hird could have worn a brace on her left leg, but she wasn't thrilled with that idea.

Then her therapist at Performance Physical Therapy in Pawtucket suggested that she try a new form of Photo Therapy using infrared light. Only out on the U.S. market for about a year and a half, the treatment involves using a low level laser "to emit photons of light that are absorbed by the cells," explained clinic director Aimee Dallaire.

"The cells convert it into biological energy that the cell can use to reduce pain, to reduce inflammation, to decrease scar tissue and to speed up tissue repair.

"It accelerates healing," Dallaire said of the pain-free procedure. "We've had very good results. A lot of people have responded to the therapy."

Hird -- one of Performance Physical Therapy's first candidates for the new therapy in April of 2003 -- responded wonderfully.

"In less than two weeks of treatment, I started to get some sensations in that whole muscle group that I just didn't have any control over all this time," she said.

" Jon [Hird's husband] and I always held onto a very slim thread of hope that someday the nerve damage from the accident could be repaired. I would go to the Brown Sciences library once in a while and follow the research, and nothing, nothing, nothing. Then for our hope to be actually realized is just kind of beyond anything I can describe."

With constant stretching and strengthening exercises and continued Photo Therapy sessions, she was able to start running again by mid-July of last year, but there would be another 9 to 10 months of false starts and plateaus before Hird reached a point where she felt she could really train.

"I was like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz trying to move," she said. "My joints weren't used to the impact at all.

"The first thing that happened was that subconsciously I was afraid to stop running when I went out because I was afraid it might not be there the next day, so that was something I had to overcome. And there was some frustration with minor injuries, and each time I hit a plateau, I had to step back and work on more strengthening. But every other day, I look at my husband and say, 'Can you believe I'm doing this?' "

Hird ran a few road races this year, achieving a personal best of 20:02 for the 5K, which she is intent on getting under 20 minutes.

Earlier this month, she finished third in the 45-49 age group at the USA Track & Field Masters 8K Cross Country Championships in Boston with a time of 32:56. She just built up to running 50 miles per week and is looking forward to competing in the upcoming indoor track season.

There are times when Hird says she has felt like Rip Van Winkle, the fictional character who awakens from a 20-year nap to find everything around him has changed.

"It's bizarre. It really is a different world," she said of the state of running today. "There are far more women running. None of the faces are the same anymore. Even something as simple as the clothing is different. It's not just a cotton T-shirt and a pair of shorts anymore.

"Aside from the fact that I have all the instincts and that I have all the training knowledge, it really has been like starting from scratch. At times, I feel really much like the runners I coach who are still in their first season."

But Hird says that what she's doing now gives her "far greater satisfaction." She is embracing every new challenge, and today, as with every day that she has run since regaining the full use of her leg, she is going to bask in the joy of being able to put one foot in front of the other again.

"All these years, I've said that I wanted to be able to run one more mile, just to remember what it feels like. Now I can run over 10," said Hird. "It's been so neat. It's been like rediscovering a passion, and it's been so much fun because there's nothing else attached to it. It's something I love to do and something I can do again after all the years of not being able to."