The RoundHouse | 9/2/2022 2:38:00 PM

Listen to a podcast with Ben Flowers and Clayton Duchatscheck on Shocker cross country

By Paul Suellentrop
 
To return to the sport he loves, Ben Flowers needed to love that sport less.
 
Flowers, a senior distance runner at Wichita State, opens the cross country season on Saturday in the JK Gold Classic at 4 Mile Creek Resort near Augusta. In 2019, Flowers won the JK Gold Classic to start a breakout season in which he earned All-American Athletic Conference and NCAA All-Midwest Region honors.
 
He did not race again for the Shockers until January 2022 in indoor track. A hip injury kept him out of competition for two years. The pain and inactivity forced him to examine his relationship with the sport to save the relationship.
 
"If I'm not a runner, who am I?" he said. "My whole life, I was the runner. In high school, people in my town would say 'Oh, you're the runner. You're the really good runner.' That got taken away from me. It's the hardest thing I've gone through."
 
The two years of rehab and recovery taught him to appreciate his life away from the tracks, trails, and roads. Flowers, from Jerseyville, Ill., now sees the experience, while frustrating and painful, as one he would not change.
 
"It was my mind that needed help, not my body," he said. "A lot of my worth and my sense of self-esteem was based off my performance."
 
Soon after the 2019 cross country season, bi-lateral labral (the ring of cartilage on the socket part of the hip joint) tears in his hips became too painful for him to run through. He ran once, unattached, in January 2020, before shutting down.
 

 
"Those are injuries that don't ever heal on their own, because it's cartilage and not bone and muscle," he said. "The pain is kind of bouncing around. Different tendons, different muscles were compensating. One day I would have really bad groin pain. One day I would have really bad quad pain. It was hard to pinpoint."
 
In 2019, Flowers finished seventh in the AAC cross country meet, the best of any Shocker during its membership in the conference, and 17^th in the NCAA regional meet.
 
"He was on his way to some major, major performances," cross country coach Kirk Hunter said.
 
Without running as his motivator and reward, other parts of his life suffered. Talks with Dr. Brianna Ward, athlete mental health coordinator, gave him a map to better mental health. Wichita State athletic trainers encouraged him to try yoga, which helped his mind and body.
 
"It was a year into it, and I wasn't getting any better," he said. "I was really beat up from that. It was very hard to go through, because I was doing everything in my power and not making any progress."
 
He learned to accept the injury as a neutral factor, one that he needed to learn to cope with instead of conquering. The labral tears, he learned, would always be painful. He learned to lessen the pain, expect it, and run with it as effectively as possible. He improved his diet by limiting sugars and focusing on proteins while making sure he took in enough calories to keep his body strong.
 
The support system at Wichita State – teammates, coaches and university staff – kept him going and motivated him to remain a part of the team.
 
Most important, Flowers learned to see his worth as an excellent student, as a family member, a friend and teammate to build esteem away from running.
 
"That's where my worth comes from – not just a single area," he said. "It was a lot of identifying other strengths that I have. It was building my identity towards more than a runner. Being more than an athlete. Having these other areas of life that I'm proud of and I value."
 
Flowers, who majored in psychology and is working on his master's degree in counseling with a specialization in sports, wants to work with athletes as his profession. The past two years of injury, comebacks, setbacks, mental-health strategies, and rehab give him a background to help others.
 
"I view this injury as absolutely necessary for my growth," he said. "I would go through that all again. It showed me what I want to do with the rest of my life."
 
Throughout the stresses of injuries, college life and competition lost to COVID, Flowers and former teammates Zack Penrod and Jed Helker leaned on each other. Penrod forced Flowers to open up. Penrod listened to his frustrations and encouraged to him to take his time and recover fully.
 
"Ben was in a tough place, and I was in a tough place, like a lot of people were," Penrod said. "Sometimes, it's easier to look out for and uplift the people around you than it is yourself. He's just a great presence. Calming. He wouldn't let me fly off the rails. More than anything, it's about being able to be vulnerable with someone."
 
The Shocker coaches never wavered in their support. During his recovery, Flowers told director of track and field Steve Rainbolt that he felt guilty taking a roster spot and scholarship money when he couldn't perform. Rainbolt responded by telling Flowers that coaches wanted him on the team.
 
"'That's not what we do at Wichita State,'" Flowers remembers Rainbolt saying. "I really felt appreciated as an athlete and a person. I never felt pressured."
 
Injuries, from nagging to career-ending, are part of track and field. Hunter has watched athletes come back from significant obstacles. Two years off, however, is unique even in that context.
 
"Most people won't keep going," Hunter said. "He obviously has goals he still wants to reach and is also strong enough and willful enough he was able to get through it."
 
Flowers began to see the rewards of the yoga and his change in mind-set late in the fall of 2021. By not obsessing over the pain in his hips and the daily grind of "how do I feel," he noticed less discomfort. Yoga helped his flexibility and mobility.
 
In January 2022, he ran the 3,000 meters at the All-Kansas Invite at Washburn. In the conference indoor championships, he placed sixth in the 5,000 and 12^th in the 10,000. At the AAC outdoor championships, he helped the Shockers win the men's team title by placing 10^th in the 5,000 and fourth in the 10,000.
 
"Each time he made some amount of improvement, it's been celebrated," Penrod said. "It's something we've all been watching closely. We saw him at his lowest. Each time he makes it – it's genuinely awesome."
 
On Saturday, Flowers runs cross country for Wichita State for the first time since 2019. The Shockers finished second in the AAC last fall and they start this season with high expectations. Flowers is thrilled to be part of those plans.
 
"I feel the strongest and most fit I've ever felt," he said. "As a team, it's one of the best I've seen. I'm really, really motivated for this year and this team."
 
His love for running will once again be on display in the gentle rolling hills near Augusta on a hot summer day. The love, Flowers will tell you, is a healthy love for the sport.
 
He is a runner, but not solely a runner.
 
Paul Suellentrop writes about Wichita State athletics for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.