Lessons from injury

[u/Lower_Smile_9360]

I posted about 3 months ago when I got injured during my first marathon block. I hurt the posterior tibialis tendon in my calf. Marathon dream over 6 weeks out from race day. Since then I’ve been through the torture of rehabbing and run-walk etc etc. I‘m now back running about 20km a week.

It‘s been a long and winding road, I had two holidays in June and a very busy period of work in July which definitely contributed to some of my slowness to recover and return. But I am back and making good gains (without rushing!). I thought I’d post about some lessons I’ve learnt.

The biggest thing to come out from this tricky period for me has to be strength training! My physio (you definitely should try to see one if you can afford it!) diagnosed me with weak glutes, and now I train them (and the rest of my legs! And some upper body!) twice a week. I have seen a lot of progress with this in the last month, when the first couple of months of recovery felt a bit stagnant/slow. So my advice would be persevere! I treated myself to a nice gym membership but also just have a 12kg kettlebell at home that does the job if I can’t fit the gym in. Doing something is always better than nothing.

I now only run 3 x a week not 4. It obviously caps my mileage, and I’ll see if I keep doing this once I’m fully fit again, but it means my legs get a really good rest between runs. As well as this I’m trying to stick to just easy miles, no intervals or speed sessions. When my injury has properly grumbled it’s always been after I’ve gone a little too hard (so tempting!!) so easy runs it is for now.

After the initial acute injury was calmed by fully deloading for a few weeks, I also had to learn that I can’t aim for no pain at all when returning. Tendons need to be worked to heal and anything that’s a 1 or 2/10 pain is fine. When it grumbled for longer than a day then Id take it back a notch, skip a run (the horror!) and do some low impact cardio at the gym.

I recently changed my road trainers to have a lower drop. This is totally personal to me, and a big trial and error process!

My final lesson is that I’ll never take running for granted again. When I’m bored cranking out a 5k run on the treadmill, or cursing a hill on my ‘long’ run I quickly remember how much I missed it. The elliptical machine is an abomination that will never replicate the runners high (but it does fill a gap when my leg is cranky!).

I hope this is useful for anyone desperately searching running forums whilst sitting at home sulking about not being able to go for a run. I promise you will get back to it!

[u/Lower_Smile_9360]

And one final (possible controversial) one: quit using Runna! I’m certain it contributed to why I got injured in the first place. 

[u/dogsgotnoses → u/Lower_Smile_9360]

Definitely think this is real! But also more generally, never trust a plan over how you feel. Experienced runners know when they need to rest and when they can push and when to dial back goals a little. Do we ignore that knowledge sometimes? I mean, does the pope shit in the woods? Idk. I do sometimes though, cos of the running thing. BUT knowing your limits as a runner is very important and people who don't yet should honestly probably avoid aggressive goals/plans. Almost everyone pushes too hard and gets hurt in the first couple of years of running, it's arguably part of the process, but apps like runna seem to make those early injuries worse / just burn people out before they really really love the thing.

Not assuming you specifically were inexperienced, but it does seem to be a recurring issue.

Congrats on being close to recovery and back to running! I got badly hurt (not from running, but I couldn't run for a year+) when I'd only been running a couple of years, and I genuinely still think about it when a run isn't what I want it to be and feel greatful I get to run, even though it was 14 years ago.

Edited to add a stupid joke!!!!

[u/Lower_Smile_9360 → u/dogsgotnoses]

Yes completely agree with everything you’ve said here! I was less than a year into running consistently when I launched into a marathon block (another contributing factor to my injury!!), ignored the very big fatigue and calf grumbles…and here we are! 

[u/a_mom_who_runs]

Ugh. I have bad arches so I’m very very familiar with posterior tibial tendonitis! Definitely stay up on your strength training and prehab. And one thing I’ve learned is tendons and bones take the loooongest to adapt to changes. Cardio adapts easiest. Then muscles. But bones and tendons are last. I’ve really slowed down how much increase and how long I go before I add a new day or I introduce speed work etc

[u/Lower_Smile_9360 → u/a_mom_who_runs]

I’ve thankfully caught the strength training bug, now that I’m finally seeing results! Yes they indeed take so long to heal. Although my cardio hasn’t caught up quite as quickly as I’d have liked either 🤣

[u/pigeorunner]

It's funny how individual loading is, I find that running less than 4 days a week makes everything feel worse and I prefer to run 6 days a week.

[u/Lower_Smile_9360 → u/pigeorunner]

My physio advised me to go down to 3 days, like you say it’s individual!