Masterton runner's injury still a mystery

Ace Masterton endurance runner Graeme Butcher remains uncertain of the cause of the injury which forced him to withdraw from the New Zealand squad that contested the world 24-hour championships in Poland earlier this month.

Butcher first knew something was awry about three months ago, when moving forward at any pace became a painful experience and medical attention showed him to have suffered a stress fracture to the pelvis.

"Honestly, I still haven't got any idea what caused it," Butcher said yesterday. "All I can think is that it must have something to do with continually pounding the roads but, then again, I wasn't actually doing big mileage at the time. It's a bit of a puzzle really."

Butcher would have been heading to Poland as the defending national 24-hour champion, having won that title in Auckland last year with a distance of 270km - up more than 30km on what he covered when fourth in the same event in 2010.

His aim was to break the 220km mark at the worlds and, right until being struck down by his injury, everything pointed to him achieving that feat.

"Things were going well, I didn't think for a minute anything was wrong," he said.

"It just came on suddenly and, when it was painful to even walk, I knew I was in trouble."

Butcher said he was "gutted" when he learnt of the seriousness of his injury and he quickly realised there was no chance of recovering in time to compete in Poland.

"You can't go into an event like that without being totally fit and ready, and I knew that was never going to happen. There was no option but to pull out."

Medical advice to Butcher was to stop running for at least 10 weeks. At long last, the wait is over and he is slowly starting to get back into the groove again.

Typically though, the man has not let his frustrations get the better off him.

He is already looking forward to his next endurance competition, although he admits that probably will not be until about March next year.

"It's going to take a while to get back into shape but we'll get there, no doubt about that."