by Joel Gorthy photos and video courtesy of Diane Glass Things were going great for Craig Glass. He competed in his first Boston Marathon in April of last year, saying afterward that it was the greatest experience of his life. Back at home in southern Oregon, he and his wife of 23 years, Diane, were building their dream house on a scenic waterfront spot along the North Umpqua River. Craig typically ran five times a week on the rural roads near the town of Winchester. He had the confidence and posture of an elite athlete, his lean and muscular 43-year-old physique a testimonial to the health benefits of the sport. In 30 years of distance running, nothing slowed Craig down. Nothing, that is, until a seemingly minor injury in June 1996. Craig tore the cartilage in his knee and needed surgery, but he wasn’t worried. The injury is common among runners, the operation routine for surgeons. Diane says Craig was on an emotional high for a long time after the marathon, and following the diagnosis of his injury, he still seemed upbeat. She even has a picture of Craig, smiling, being pulled into the operating room in a little red wagon. He had seen a scared young girl being wheeled in for surgery that way and thought he deserved the same. “He was always a joker,” says Diane. “He was really optimistic about the surgery.” The operation in early August went smoothly, but things fell apart quickly afterward. A short but violent depression followed Craig’s surgery. At one point in late September he said he felt his soul leave his body. Craig Glass killed himself on October 8, 1996, veering his pickup off a country road and into an embankment at high speed. The truck climbed nearly 30 feet up the steep rock face. There were no skid marks. Diane, also a runner, says several factors may have contributed to the emotional whirlwind that swept her husband away. But she feels certain that his inability to keep running at his accustomed intensity did nothing less than take away his will to live. Craig’s apparent reaction to the loss of involvement in his sport was extreme, but he was not alone in the type of suffering he endured. Sports psychologists and trainers are paying more attention to cases like Craig’s and to the link between injury and emotional distress among athletes. According to research by rehabilitation expert Albert Petitpas, Ed.D., of Springfield College in Massachusetts, 5 to 13 percent of injured athletes develop some form of clinical distress. The athletes, particularly those with career-ending injuries, may become depressed, turn to alcohol to cope or become suicidal, Petitpas told the Monitor, the American Psychological Association’s journal. A 1994 study in the Journal of Athletic Training reported that a group of athletes who attempted postinjury suicide shared several similarities, including injuries that required surgery and rehabilitation that lasted six weeks to a year. The prognosis was good for Craig’s recovery and return to running. It would be six to eight weeks before he could start running seriously again and longer before he could regain his speed. But his surgeon encouraged him to engage in alternative activities like swimming and biking, which he did. “He was pretty optimistic for a while,” says Diane, “but I don’t know how much he was covering up.” No matter how many resources injured athletes have to fall back on or how well they seem to be doing, Dr. Claudia Sowa of the University of Virginia told the Monitor that close attention to athletes’ mental health is crucial as they deal with cutbacks in sports participation. Sowa, who rehabilitates injured athletes at the university, also emphasizes the importance of selecting healthy alternatives to sports. Click here for a 3 Mb video clip of Craig running Craig had many activities to fill the void left by his inability to run at the same intensity. He was a loving husband and father and well-liked postmaster in Winchester. Active in a church congregation, he was also an avid fisherman, hunter and camper with interests in photography and woodworking. These activities were not enough to sustain him, however. Eileen Udry, Ph.D., an assistant professor in exercise and movement science at the University of Oregon, suggests that sports be recognized as more than a hobby for devoted athletes. Sports are as important as family, friends or careers for these people. “We acknowledge that someone who loses his job will have trouble dealing with that, and for some people sports are just as important or even more so than a job,” she says. “For some people, sports are just as important as a job.” A group of 30 injured runners showed more depression, anger and confusion, along with lower self-esteem, than 30 noninjured runners in a 1988 study published in Perceptual and Motor Skills. Craig’s rapid emotional deterioration supports those findings. He began suffering from insomnia and seemed to have nightmares when he did sleep. His co-workers saw unusual mood swings and noticed him making mistakes he never made before. He was upset that he couldn’t get his heart rate up to the level he was used to. Because he couldn’t run at his normal speed, Craig began light jogging late that summer. Diane went with him because she could keep up. Normally, he was about twice as fast as she was, and they would run separately. One morning, on the track at the community college near their home, Craig said to Diane, “If I have to run like this, I really don’t want to run at all.” “Suppose you never run a five-minute mile again,” she replied. “Would that be so bad?”