Sheridan missed two years and returned among the world's best
By Christopher Hunt
NEW YORK – Ryan Sheridan sat on the white concrete bleachers at Van Cortlandt Park. He isn’t training this day. Sheridan is on a scheduled break. But even if he wanted to lace up his training sneakers, he’d be sidelined right now. In fact, he’s been out for about five weeks.
Sheridan, a freshman at Iona College, fresh off his 52nd-place finish at the World Junior Cross Country championships in Edinburgh, Scotland April 1, has a high hamstring strain. Since he has decided to red-shirt his freshman year, there is no need to rush back. Thing is, the difference now is that Sheridan knows what’s wrong.
And at least he knows he’ll run again. Even if he doesn’t know when.
“Ideally, less than two years,” Sheridan said. “Anything less than that is a victory.”
Most people hadn’t seen or heard from or about Ryan Sheridan until he appeared almost suddenly at Iona. After what many people regarded as the best sophomore cross country season in New York State history at Walt Whitman High (Melville, N.Y.), Sheridan practically vanished.
“You go from the mountain top to worrying about your health,” his high school coach, Rob Conroy said.
Sheridan won the New York State Federation cross country championship as a sophomore in 2004. He had the fastest 2-mile in the state, running 9:12.50 at the Stanner Games. But he had a persistent pain in his hip and headed to the doctor to investigate. The doctor then discovered his swollen kidneys.
Sheridan has a history of kidney stones in his family. The swelling was diagnosed as hydronephrosis, which is usually caused by an obstruction of the flow of urine from the kidney. He had a successful surgery the week before the indoor state championships but the pain in his hip remained.
For nearly two years Sheridan bounced from doctor to doctor, from chiropractor to chiropractor, his parents shuttling him from Suffolk County into Manhattan or spending his afternoons on the Long Island Railroad. Sheridan had acupuncture, hydrotherapy, even visited a hypnotist. He took advice from friends, family and coaches, got references all over the place and more diagnoses than he can remember.
Finally, in December 2006, he met with Dr. Francis Dia, a chiropractor in East Northport in Long Island.
“He was the first person to give me a standing X-Ray,” Sheridan said.
Sheridan said Dia discovered that his left hip was an inch and a half lower than his right hip. In other words, one of his legs is slightly longer than the other, which caused an uneven stride and his subsequent pain. Dia gave him a heel lift for his shoes.
“I was running in two weeks,” Sheridan said.
Midway through this winter season as a sophomore he put track on the shelf. He never raced again in high school and has sat out his freshman season at Iona, only wearing the Gaels’ jersey at the United States and then World Junior Cross Country Championships. This injury has given him no reason to panic. There is no mystery behind this ailment. The next thing he needs to be concerned with is making the cross country team in the fall.
“I know what this is,” he said. “I know how to treat it. I’m not in any rush. I don’t have to be fit for another seven months or so. So there’s nothing to worry about.”
Sheridan had barely run and certainly hadn’t participated in a hard workout in the three weeks leading up to the world championships. He injured himself during a road run three weeks before the meet.
“We weren’t going to run,” Iona coach Mick Byrne said.
Sheridan saw the team doctor the week of the race in Scotland, received a cortisone injection, did a couple light runs and took the starting line with some of the best distance runners in the world with barely a year of training and a bum leg.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Byrne said. “For a kid to be out for two years and bounce back that quick, it’s amazing.”
Sheridan could just as easily still be a spectator. After his kidney surgery and the continuing pain in his hip, it wasn’t far-fetched to believe that his inherent kidney issues and the hip pain were related. While he went on his endless doctor visits, Sheridan stayed with the team. Conroy employed him as a team manager. He pulled on his maroon Walt Whitman hoodie and served as another coach.
“It was incredibly frustrating for him,” Conroy said. “It was an excruciating time for him. … You could sense it, but he did such a great job of being strong on the exterior but you could tell he was hurting inside.”
Sheridan joined the track team at Walt Whitman as an eighth-grader. Conroy instantly took note of his extraordinary stamina. Sheridan became a student of running. He read books. He tracked results from around the state and the country.
“It was like having a scout on the team,” Conroy said.
Conroy and Sheridan were discussing training methods and strategy. Conroy said he had taught Sheridan how to run and now suddenly the pupil was training the teacher. Sheridan had disappeared from the track and field landscape except for an occasional mention on a message board. But when on July 1, at the conclusion of his junior year, the first day coaches are allowed to call recruits, Sheridan’s home phone rang. It was Mick Byrne.
“I was ready to quit,” Sheridan said. “I was going to doctors two, three times a week.”
Then the phone rang.
“My dad told me that the coach from Iona College was on the phone,” Sheridan said. “I was almost in tears.”
Byrne remembered seeing Sheridan at the Foot Locker Northeast Regionals at Van Cortlandt Park in 2004. There was something about him, Byrne said of the skinny, long-haired kid standing on the medal podium after finishing fourth. Byrne posted a note on his bulletin board to call Sheridan when the time came.
“Then he just fell off the map,” Byrne said.
Sheridan also received offers from Syracuse and Oklahoma State but had already made up his mind when Byrne called that day. Sheridan’s first race came at the Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh University, Sept. 8. He finished third running unattached in the junior varsity race, finishing the 8-kilometer course in 25:14. Sheridan really took Byrne’s attention at the Boston Invitational indoors in February. He finished fifth in the 5,000 in 14:21.44.
“I remember the look in his eyes,” Byrne said. “He was in some kind of zone. There aren't many people that get that look in their eyes. The kid is something special.”
It’s the intense look that Sheridan had in his eyes in San Diego, Calif., at the U.S. Junior Cross Country Championships Feb. 16 at Mission Bay Park, where every time he passed Byrne Sheridan’s expression begged Byrne to give him the green light to take off but Byrne wanted Sheridan to conserve. He finished second.
“I think now maybe I should have let him go,” Byrne said.
Sheridan had barely a full year of training under his belt and conservative race schedule before the U.S. Championships. But with all that he had been through, with all the uncertainty, tears, pain, and restlessness and doctor visits, for every slow jog that burned his lungs while he worked himself back into shape, for every meet he had to watch because it hurt to run, for every mile that he could run today that he couldn’t run yesterday – he was confident.
“I went into that race in San Diego thinking I was going to win,” he said.
He’d been thinking about San Diego for three years. All he thought about was winning that race.
“When you’re hurt you have all these ridiculous, fantastical dreams that are impossible goals,” he said. “That was one of them.”
And only the extra surge that Californian German Fernandez had in the final 30 meters stopped Sheridan’s afternoon from becoming the Disney-style comeback story.
But when Sheridan spoke about this season, he wasn’t in awe of himself. He didn’t seem nervous about this next race – when it would be or how he would do. He still doesn’t know when he’ll be back on the track.
“I just know it won’t be two years,” he said.