Dealing with Running Injuries

I have a minor soleus injury

Well, it’s official, I’m have a grade 1 soleus strain.  For a midfoot/forefoot striker, this is usually caused by three things: 1. running on hard surfaces 2. increasing weekly mileage and 3. running hills.  All my runs that week were on concrete and I had a tough hill workout and then a long run of increasing distance.  It was a mistake doing both in the same week (and in new shoes).  I can reflect all day on how my ego drove me to think I’d be fine doing that   but thought I’d use a blog post to talk about how to deal with running injuries.

At some point, almost every runner gets injured and it can be frustrating to miss workouts and VERY worrisome when you’re trying to build up for an event.

1. First things first, figure out what’s wrong!  Put some real thought into how/when/where the pain is.  How does it feel when you put weight on it? stand? walk? flex and extend your foot?  Try to do everything you can to really narrow down EXACTLY where the pain is.  If you can pinpoint it, you can more accurately figure out what is wrong and what to do about it.

2. Do some research.  Odds are, some other runner has gone through the same thing!  You can see the anatomy, understand what muscle/tendons/joints are involved.  Check out livestrong.com, WebMD.com, everydayhealth.com, and even wikipedia for some good overviews of anatomy.  If you are able to narrow it down to a particular problem or tendon, do some searches on that specific problem and “running.”  You will often be surprised by the depth and discussion available.

3. Many injuries follow RICE: Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.  This is usually most important in the first 5 days and it will REALLY help!  At this point, you should also realize that you will not lose any fitness in the first 10 to 14 days   NSAIDs like Advil are also great, but I suggest always taking with food.

Most pools have water belts available for use that let you “run” in the deep end of the pool

4. After a couple days, evaluate where you’re at.  Hopefully a couple days off will be fine and you’re able to run again.  If there is still pain (like where I’m at now), change up the workout schedule.  Biking and swimming doesn’t seem to bother my injury, so I’m going to supplement my cardio with intense biking and swimming workouts.  If you still want to build running, consider underwater treadmill or pool running.  The underwater treadmills are hard to come by, and usually charge an hourly rate, but are pretty awesome and allow you to run on a treadmill with a fraction of the impact.  I’ve spent more time in a pool with an underwater running belt (like an aquajogger, which many pools/gyms have available for use!).  The running belts are pretty awesome, they hold you upright with your head above the water.  You just stand int he deep end and move your arms and legs.  There is a good chance this will allow you to “run” in place without any of the impact of the road.