"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Out of left field...

Time to take a few days or weeks off.

[Pause for collective gasp...]



Of all the things I've discussed here, I've not said much about running when injured and that's probably what I know best. When I posted the week of 70+ miles, there was a reason behind it that I didn't say: I wanted to go up to the Superior Hiking Trail and pace someone, so that I could get to know the course better and see what I could learn from watching others in the 100 mile race, but I needed to know first that I could actually physically do it. I'd been in enough pain that I wasn't sure; the high mileage week told me I could probably handle a long trail for one day.

There are a couple of rules I use for injuries and whether or not one can run through them:

1) If you can't run for 30 minutes without pain or changing your gait to avoid pain, you're injured. Your only goal at that point should be to get to that 30 minutes. Run until something hurts, then walk briskly (if you can) until you get to 30 minutes. Don't think about training for anything until you can run the whole 30 minutes. Then plan a gradual comeback.

2) Do not take painkillers before exercise to try to circumvent rule #1). After running, one can use ice, compression, elevation and anti-inflammatories to decrease swelling. Do not stretch anything that's injured until it's completely healed; after healing's complete, stretching may help to keep the problem from returning, but it's more likely to cause further injury to things already hurting.

3) Running through an injury often leads to another injury. Often, it switches from one leg to the other, as one unintentionally babies the injured limb. Problems tend to start low and move up the body; foot problems are the most common and easiest to treat, but if left untreated, one may find one gets ankle and calf problems, then knee and hamstring problems, then iliotibial band and hip flexor problems and finally back problems. One can sometimes push through injuries when one has a race coming up and let each body part take its toll, but when your back hurts you're done - you've postponed the inevitable as long as possible and you have to stop.

I'm there. Time to do some gardening and home repair.

10 comments:

Kurt said...

Knowing how to rest is part of training in my book.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Gardening and home repair - there're two good ways to rest your back.

And if you get an STD, be sure to go out and have unprotected sex with as many whoo-wers as you can, because that's the cure for STDs.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

You next poll should be:

Did Dr. Nic's blog go offline because:

1. He f*cktardedly forgot to renew his domain name in time?

2. He took it off on purpose because he finally realized he has nothing to say (he was the last one to realize this)?

3. It is yet another instance of LIEBERAL SUPPRESSION OF WINGNUT FREE EXPRESSION!1!!1!?

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

To be honest? I'd be surprised if it wasn't option 1 because if you click his link now, you don't get "this blog has been deleted"; you get a domain name site trying to sell you that domain name. I tried accessing his blog by typing in http://left-right-repeat.blogspot.com, but that still points to http://www.left-right-repeat.com/, so I got the same result.

So I think Nic is just a virtual deadbeat, is all.

Pay your BILLS, Dr. Nic!1!

Unknown said...

I like your method for defining an injury, as I think this is an area where we all struggle. It's so hard to accept that you have to stop training because of injury, and we all tend to push that little bit further making the situation worse.

I covered this inmy posting of yesterday -
http://ultra-marathon-running.blogspot.com/2010/09/use-your-head-for-faster-recovery.html

Cheers
Andy
www.ultrarunning.com.au

RBR said...

1. Yes, personally I would like to see what ever YOU found interesting enough to take a picture of even if someone else had taken 1000 pictures of it.

If I find someone interesting enough to read their blog or get to know them, then I am genuinely interested in them and what they do, think, and enjoy.

2. Umm... 99.9% of the time on a run I am the one holding the camera so yeah, my pictures are posed if I am in them, since, despite my full addict level denial system, I can not really sneak up on myself. Sorry.


"...a plastic posed smile"

Thanks for that, by the way. The day was not going bad enough.

Leaving now.

SteveQ said...

Oops. Need to apologize in two places now.

RBR said...

*smiles*

Yes, you can.

sea legs girl said...

I like Kurt's comment. I would just change it to "Knowing how to -cross train- is part of training in my book." Rest is also okay, I guess.

Okay mis also kind of how I feel about the Pipettes. Though I agree that in theory I should like them.

I wrote a comment on your last post and it is missing. Did you erase it to get back at me for erasing yours?

Unknown said...

You can ignore the warning signs.... If you do it too long you body will retaliate!

:-)