I have been injured before.\u00a0 In high school, I dealt with shin splints playing soccer and later as a casual runner.\u00a0 There have been times when I have had to take a week off from running because something was hurting when I ran.\u00a0 I practically know my orthopedist on a first name basis.\u00a0 But my latest injury has been the most devastating I’ve ever had.<\/p>\n
Runners can be stubborn, and I am no different.\u00a0 We tend to test out limits – not just with speed or distance,\u00a0 but also with tolerance of pain. We want to see if it goes away while running and if it does, we tend to ignore it.\u00a0 This has been my philosophy.\u00a0 The problem is, when <\/em>should we stop running if the pain is not going away?<\/p>\n My stubbornness and unwise moves has led to my worse injury yet, with 6 weeks missed in running, as well as missing my first marathon. I am posting my story to maybe help someone else avoid the same mistakes I’ve made.<\/p>\n So what happened? I probably made at least a few mistakes. One was while I was training for my marathon,\u00a0 I ramped up my long runs too quickly over a few weeks.\u00a0 Second,\u00a0 I purchased a new pair of running shoes like my old shoes, except extra wide.\u00a0 It turns out they were too<\/em> wide. I went out in these new shoes and ran 10 miles without any issues,\u00a0 but the next day, my knee hurt. That was odd. So I took Advil and the pain was gone.\u00a0\u00a0 Two days later, I ran 3 miles on the treadmill and this time I felt the pain during the run. Ut oh.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 A couple days later, it was speedwork day,\u00a0 4 miler.\u00a0 The pain was there again, but this time it was more prominent.\u00a0 This should have been the point where it’s time to say “time out.” Something is not right.<\/p>\n But that’s not what I did. Instead I took 3 days off before my first ever 20 mile run. In the back of my mind,\u00a0 I was worried about the knee pain, but I met up with a friend, and we proceeded to run.\u00a0 Around mile 1.8 I started to feel that pain as in previous runs, but it was tolerable,\u00a0 so I kept going.\u00a0 By mile 3, the pain was getting worse.\u00a0 It’s the body’s way of saying,\u00a0 “You idiot! Stop what you’re doing now!” Runners are stubborn,\u00a0 and I thought over 20 miles it would likely go away at some point. It did not<\/em>. By mile 5 the pain was getting intense. Every other step was hurting badly. But I kept going. By mile 7, my leg was now buckling and giving out,\u00a0 along with pain shooting down my leg.\u00a0 That probably means, more damage is being done. I could no longer run. I told my friend to keep going, and I would walk back to the car that was about 3.5 miles away.\u00a0\u00a0 Even walking hurt now. Ever the optimist,\u00a0 I began to jog again, only to be stopped again by excruciating pain, so then I would walk. This pattern repeated all the way to 11 miles.\u00a0 This was my biggest most significant mistake. I have not run more than a half mile since then.<\/p>\n My road to recovery has involved physical therapy, an MRI,\u00a0 and a cortisone shot. The MRI showed chondromalacia and the orthopedist also suspected the IT band is involved as well.\u00a0 In future posts, I will have more thoughts about this and my recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been injured before.\u00a0 In high school, I dealt with shin splints playing soccer and later as a casual runner.\u00a0 There have been times when I have had to take a week off from running because something was hurting when I ran.\u00a0 I practically know my orthopedist on a first name basis.\u00a0 But my latest injury has been the most devastating I’ve ever had. Runners can be stubborn, and<\/p>\n