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Thanks to a right hamstring that felt like it “kind of exploded” in an indoor track and field meet, Moran put on exactly zero training or race miles from late April through all of May.
It basically erased his outdoor track and field season — he had been an NCAA Division III All-American in the 10,000 meters in 2007 as a freshman — and put him way behind in his cross country preparation.
“It’s very frustrating and mentally demoralizing,” Moran said.
Fast forward to this cross country season, and Moran is nearly back to full strength.
The junior from New Berlin, Wis., has been the Eagles men’s cross country team’s lead runner in its first two primary meets, including the Midwest Collegiates Sept. 20 in Decorah, Iowa and the 31-team Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis Sept. 27.
Moran finished third out of 307 runners at the Griak, considered one of the Midwest’s most competitive meets of the regular season, completing the 8-kilometer course in 25 minutes, 48 seconds.
“The main thing when you’re injured is you think you might never be back to where you were before,” Moran said. “Negative thoughts would cross my mind. It helped a lot that my teammates kept in touch with me and believing that I could come back.”
The 2007-08 season was a difficult one for Moran. During cross country, he caught a virus that kept him in bed for four days and prevented him from training for two weeks in the preseason. He lost 10 pounds and never got to where he wanted to be, although he finished ninth at the WIAC meet and 73rd in the NCAA Div. III meet.
During the winter, he was on a training run when he tweaked his hamstring running over a patch of ice. He worked through it, but it was still sore for the first indoor track meet of the season. He ran anyway, and that’s when it popped.
Moran took two weeks off and got his hamstring feeling better, but when he went full-bore in a meet, it popped again.
That’s when Moran knew the only thing he could do was nothing at all.
“You hear about guys who get injured like that and they never get close to being back,” Moran said. “It’s hard, but that’s why I had to say, ‘I need to take some time off.’”
When Moran came back, he did it carefully.
“I started in the summer just going five minutes a day,” Moran said. “The next week, it was 10, then 15, then 20. It was a really, really slow progression, but that’s what got me back.”
Moran entered a 5k race in Milwaukee in late June, a 4-mile race in Hales Corners in July and a 5k in La Crosse in late July.
“I felt awesome the whole time in the (four-mile), and in the
(La Crosse) 5k, I was running alongside another runner as we got to the final 400 meters. He started pushing it, and I was hesitant because of my injury. I didn’t go with him completely, but I did push it a little, and after that race, I got 100 percent of my confidence back.”
It has been smooth sailing since then. Moran said he doesn’t think about his hamstring while running anymore, just the things he’s supposed to think about.
“Now that I’m not worried about my injury, my mental focus has shifted onto races and getting better,” Moran said.
UW-L coach Don Fritsch said having Moran running strong makes his whole team better.
“As Paul goes, so goes the rest of the team,” Fritsch said. “Because there are a lot of guys on this team who believe they can run with Paul. So the better he gets, the better his teammates get.”
