The last time I visited a chiropractor was in 1984. I'd developed minor back spasms following a cross country race. Tom "Mac" McMurray, my coach at Glendale (Calif.) Community College, suggested I see a chiropractor. Mac had suffered lower back pain from sciatica. After dozens of failed remedies, he'd finally hit pay dirt with a chiropractic adjustment. His sciatica was cured.
The first thing my 1984 chiropractor did was take an X-ray of my spine. Then he studied the X-ray, frowned, and said, "If you keep running, you risk never walking again."
He finished with a spinal adjustment that previewed his prediction: I could barely walk for a week.
I didn't go for a second visit. Not to him. Not to any chiropractor. And three decades later, I could still run and walk.
Then came Super Bowl Sunday 2013. I'd watched the game from a chair custom-designed to inflict maximum pain on the human body. Postgame, I went for a run. And pinged my hamstring. Just a strain, I thought, and took a week off. Three weeks later, it pinged again. Two weeks after that, it went ping-ping-ping-ping-ping, like a Las Vegas slot machine. Sharp pain in my back. Sharp pain in my butt. Pain all over the hammy.
This was no hamstring strain. This was sciatica.
John Koningh, a Cal Coast Track Club teammate, is a chiropractor in nearby Newport Beach, Calif. He was also a 3:43 (1500m) and 13:47 (5,000m) guy back in the day and a runner for the past 44 years. He heard about my sciatica and insisted I come see him.
"Explain to me why I don't need to be terrified," I say when I'm seated in Koningh's office, only a few feet from his rack, which he euphemistically calls a "hydraulic chiropractic table."
"I've worked on world-class athletes for more than 30 years," says Koningh, all boyish smiles and enthusiasm, ignoring the sweat on my upper lip. "Some were Olympians -- gold, silver and bronze medalists -- and some were world record-holders."
"Before or after you treated them?"
"Before the Sydney Olympics, I did a trigger point release and cross-fiber massage for Cathy Freeman," says Koningh, naming the women's gold medalist for 400m.
"So you don't break runners' bones and end their careers?" I ask.
"Hell, no!" he says.
Koningh's wall is covered with photos of runners he's treated. From my generation, I recognize Mary Decker, Steve Scott, Ruth Wysocki, Doug Padilla, Mark Nenow, Henry Marsh and others.
Impressed, I agree to lie down on his table. I've already written off spring racing, so what can it hurt? Still, I ask my friend Diana to stay in the room. I want a witness if anything goes wrong, like if Koningh harvests my vertebrae for a Halloween xylophone.
Koningh starts with a quick examination. I have asymmetry in my hips and muscle spasms in my lower back and glutes. My left leg is a quarter inch shorter than my right. He applies a heated hydrocollator pad to my lower back and electro-muscle stimulation to my gluteal area. Then he proceeds with trigger point therapy to my calves and glutes, with a special focus on my piriformis muscle, which overlays the sciatic nerve.
"When you say trigger point," I say, gulping air between croaks of pain, "you really mean digging your elbow as deep as you can into the painful nerve endings in my muscle."
"Not as deep as I can," he says, and drives the elbow deeper to prove his point.
He follows trigger point therapy with an adjustment, then ends by cracking my neck. I stand up. I walk. I bend. And I can't believe it. I feel absolutely wonderful. I ask how long this euphoria will last.
"It could be short-lived or long-lived," says Koningh. "There are 6 billion people on this planet, and every one's different."
I ask how long it takes to get permanently fixed.
"You may need two or three sessions. You may need six or eight or 10. I treat on an as-needed basis. My philosophy is to get at the root or origin of the problem, not just put a Band-Aid on it by suggesting aspirin or anti-inflammatories."
I go home and run 10 pain-free miles.
For three decades, I've had a bone to pick with chiropractors. Now, I have an appointment with Koningh for next Friday.
Pete Magill holds five American age-group records and is the oldest American to break 15:00 for 5K, running 14:45 a few months before his 50th birthday.
