Disclaimer: This article is not meant to be taken as medical advice or substitute the advice of a licensed medical professional. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any types of injuries. This article is based on my own personal experiences, and the reader may or may not have a similar experience. I am just telling my story.
One of the most agonizing things when running regularly or training for a race is when injuries occur, and what it means as far as continuing to train. Run long enough and you are bound to at least experience some sore muscles and likely more. The annoying injuries sometimes seem like they come out of nowhere. So what do you do when your ankle suddenly hurts? Your knee? Your quads? Your I.T. band? This is my story with injuries, and what I have learned about when to run and when to stop. Your experiences may be different.
Funny, but I have experienced all of these types of injuries before, and what I’ve learned after running for a while is that there are some “injuries” you can run through and some you cannot and should not. My personal guidelines for determining whether to rest or run are as follows:
General Rules I follow:
- Hurts to walk/run – I don’t run after testing for 0.5 – 1 mile
- Hurts to walk but okay running – I run.
- Nothing hurts at beginning of run but then it hurts and worsens while running – I stop immediately and walk
- Doesn’t hurt to walk, hurts to run in beginning, then dissipates – I keep running
- Pain is excruciating to run and remains or worsens – I don’t run or try to tough it out.
- Pain is moderate to run – I run to see how it is – if it lessens or remains the same, I will sometimes run through it. Of course if it is worse after running (e.g., now it hurts to walk when it didn’t before), I will stop running for a few days.
- Pain not related to running (e.g., karate injury) – I run, then follow rules 1-6.
More Specific Injury Guidelines I follow:
- Pain while walking: This is just normal daily routine walking, and as I walk around, something hurts. Maybe it is something that I am not sure if it’s muscle, bone, or nerve related. It seems likely that it will probably hurt while running too, but I will go for a mile or two and see how it feels, but I stop immediately if it feels worse while running because I do not want to cause more damage. If it hurts when I start but gets better as I run, I take that to be a good sign. If it hurts the entire way but doesn’t get worse, I have run through that too. Over time I have learned to know by the “type” of pain (hard to explain) while walking if I can run through it.
- Back pain. Since I am falling a lot in karate, it is not unusual for me to have back pain. I have never had back pain become worse from running, but it also doesn’t help it get better. When I last trained for a marathon in 2017, towards the end of the training I was feeling a bit of back pain but I could run through it. The pain was actually at its worse when I was sitting, not running. It lingered for weeks, was there during the race, and worse after the race for weeks. Then it went away within a week of seeing a chiropractor. Definitely should have gone sooner!
- Knee pain. I’ve learned to be extremely careful with this, and I have documented HERE in my blog the issues I had before with a knee issue that sidelined me for 7-8 weeks. Every so often I will get knee pain manifesting just while walking. Whenever that happens, I do not try to run on it. I will take Advil and try to run the next day if it feels better. That usually works. It if is sore an extra day, I will continue with Advil until it goes away because I have learned that inflammation in the knee can be hard to get rid of and running could intensify that inflammation.
- Sore muscles. Generally I have found it is okay to run through sore muscles, as long as they become less sore as I run (after 1 mile) or it doesn’t feel like it’s getting worse. I take extra time to stretch after the run, and this can even make the sore muscle issue go away.
- Nerve/Other pain. Shooting pain, tingling, burning pain, etc., if minor, I have experimented with running through it with varying results. I have tried to “listen to my body” and back off if didn’t seem right to continue running through it. Luckily I have not had to deal with these issues too much. Shooting pain could be a sign of something else, like a stress fracture, so I am always careful with this these types of injuries.
A few more thoughts. These guidelines work for me, but they might not work for you. Also, I realize that I probably caused a delay in healing minor/moderate injuries while continuing to run through them. Training for a marathon or half marathon will usually results in these types of setbacks, and my philosophy, flawed or not, has been run when I felt like it was needed in order to prepare for a race. The tapering period is a great time to cut miles back and nurse injuries. Otherwise, I generally follow what I’ve written above. Again, your “mileage” may vary (pun intended). See what works for you.