Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A little pain

Once again I find myself pondering about what I am certain that runners everywhere commonly do.  How much is too much? How can I tell if I am overtraining? Well from my experience the body speaks, it tells you how it is doing, the trick is learning how to listen.  For many this is a very difficult task, including me.  This post is somewhat bittersweet, it was only days ago that I posted about completing a big training goal and now I was forced to take today off.  By forced I mean that I was feeling what I perceived as a possible serious injury and I decided to sideline myself for a couple of runs so that it didn't become a major issue.  

For quite some time now I have had an array of problems with achilles type pain; I had a real minor achilles tendonitis, followed by an injury involving my posterior tibialis on the same leg, and now I am faced with what I thought was perhaps shin splints, but after a visit to a trained professional, it turns out to be an extremely tight soleus (insert deep sigh of relief here).  All of these problems are related to tight calves, and a tight posterior leg in general.  I am glad that I wasn't given a 6 week jail sentence today yet I am somewhat uncertain of what to do to help clear up this myriad of problems that I seem to have trouble escaping.  I was prescribed lots of stretching and massage.  Jared Campbell shared an awesome study about eccentric calf lowers and how effective they can be in relieving these problems which I am doing somewhat religiously.  What I do want to know is what else?  I know that there are a few that have started to follow what's in my brain through this blog, and any feedback would be very appreciated, I am still pretty new at this and any advice would be welcome.  Hopefully, I can figure out what my training is missing and get things back on track sooner than later.

1 comment:

  1. The joy of pain! You have done the right thing-listen to your body. My advice - become a well rounded runner, meaning, a strength program and a stretching program. Also, get a foam roller and use it regularly and get into yoga (if you can find the time).
    Its early in the year, be smart and stay healthy!

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