Injuries And The Need To Rest

Recently, I signed up to receive the Runners World quote of the day through my email.  Some of the quotes have been really interesting and some seem to just be a little ‘out there’ in my mind.  However, there was one quote I received this week that really stuck out in my head based on my past year of running and training for the 2011Clevelland Marathon.  The quote is by Ryan Hall and is as follows:

“I constantly remind myself that resting takes confidence. Anyone can train like a mad man but to embrace rest and to allow all the hard training to come out takes mental strength.”

As stated in my inaugural post to my blog, last year was a rough year full of injury after injury.  I was hoping to run the 2011 Cleveland Marathon and was training hard towards it; however I was not fortunate enough to make it all the way through my training.  In my multitude of reading I have done into running and running injuries, I found that 45-65% of runners will get injured in some way each year.  The degree of severity varies for each runner and each injury but I also came across this very telling quote from a Runners World article too.

‘“It's easy to get injured; anyone can do it. Just run too much. "I firmly believe that every runner has an injury threshold," says physical therapist and biomechanist Irene Davis, Ph.D., from the University of Delaware's Running Injury Clinic. "Your threshold could be at 10 miles a week, or 100, but once you exceed it, you get injured." Various studies have identified injury-thresholds at 11, 25, and 40 miles per week. Your threshold is waiting for you to discover it.’

If there is one thing I have been constantly told about running injuries is that if you hurt something and take care of it the proper way quick enough and not try to run through your injuries, you will heal quicker and better.  Last year, I did not do this at all and ran into a few long term injuries.  The first of which was my hip (IT Band).  I do not believe I got this injury from runner per say, but the running did not aid in its healing.  I used to work in restaurants in a kitchen and would be on my feet for 12-14 straight hours each day.  At Lola (the last place I worked), during my marathon training, I remember at the end of a day mopping the floor and feeling a tweak in my hip, standing upright and saying out loud ‘I think I just really hurt my hip’. 

Instead of taking a couple days off of running and being able to heal my hip up completely, I kept on running and had serious pain in my hip.  For a few days I would limp around work in pain and every 2-3 days when I could feasibly run again, I did and reinjured myself.  This went on for nearly six weeks until one faithful day I was running my 14 mile run outdoors for the training and felt my hip pop three times very painfully.  It was the most inspiring run I have ever had to date as my run encompassed the trails of so many shorter runs I had been on to see how far I had come in my training and weight loss.  Yet, I knew it was enough and had to stop.  The next day I called a physical therapist and began PT for the next eight weeks

Needless to say, I did not follow the theory of trying to rest and heal myself completely and ultimately turned something that I could have come back from in a week or two into something that took me out for months.

After around three months I was back to running, but yet again I injured myself on my first run slipping on some leaves and cutting my entire right leg.  It is still scarred today over a year later and wasn’t able to run for just over a couple weeks.  At this time, I had already transferred my Cleveland Marathon registration to next year (2012) and had signed up for the matching 10k in 2011 (ultimately dropped this race due to the runners knee).  Once I was back though, I ‘ran into’ into my next injury of runners’ knee while running a real fast 5k on a treadmill.  I ended up running a 5k race in Baltimore later that week but ended up going back to physical therapy and ended my running for the next two plus months until I arrived in Israel. 

It was very difficult for me to not run for so long as I tried to heal myself for Israel, but I embraced the rest and arrived in Israel ready to run!  I ran for the first six weeks very happily and well and injury free.  I remember during one run saying to Doug who I was running with that it feels so good for the first time in a while to run without any pain.  This wouldn’t last that long as I would be tested, and tested quickly. 

Around one week before the Tel Aviv 10k, I pulled my groin and was in bad pain while walking and taking stairs.  I tried to rest it and felt a week later I was good enough to run the Tel Aviv night run, however I couldn’t be more wrong and hobbled nearly in tears the entire walk home after finishing the race in 45:12 including walking a few minutes and slowing down heavily due to the pain.  I knew what I had to do though and that was REST!

I embraced fully the idea of resting to heal and took care of it the right way, icing injuries, resting, compressing, and strengthening.  Currently I am injury free again and looking forward to running back in Cleveland in preparation for the marathon!

In my training plan this year, I worked in in a more proper fashion of making sure I have a full day of rest in each week and will be sure to follow through on it.  Also, there is a cross training day to keep up the work but on different muscles.  The last injury prevention added in is that I will do weight training to help strengthen and prevent future injuries.  I plan to follow my training schedule and not overdo it trying to do more than I am capable of. 

Lastly, I plan to rest and properly heal any injury I get if one arises.  I know what it is like to be removed from running for a length of time and it is unbearable.  I don’t want that to happen again.  I am looking forward to my training this year and all the experiences and new lessons it will bring with it.  There is one week left in Israel and the excitement to start training for the marathon is soon to boil over!  I am ready!

On a small side note, all this experience with Physical Therapists has at least helped me decide what it is I want to do with my life.  I am returning to school to work towards getting into Graduate School for a Doctors of Physical Therapy.   

(This is the article I was referencing, good article on injury prevention: 10 Laws of Injury Prevention)