The Rise of the Injured Runner

Last Sunday whilst attempting to put a flatpack desk together for my darling 12yo boy I managed to put my back out – by that I mean as I reached for the next piece in the flatpack puzzle I twisted and reached awkwardly and managed to aggravate an old back injury.  Needless to say, the bloody desk lay abandoned on the floor as I crawled off to have a little cry!  Yes, I actually cried – more because I can still remember so vividly the last time I managed to do this rather than the pain.  I was working in Dubai for two weeks and endured 2 weeks of pretty much agony and no running for the best part of a month!

On Monday I managed to get an appointment with my wonderful chiropractor – she who put me back together after the Dubai incident and she who I see on a regular basis to keep everything aligned and in place.  After Dubai I started to take the whole thing more seriously, I am no spring chicken and I had been riding a wave of injury free running for a long time and the whole Dubai thing brought me back down to earth with a bump.  Since then I have been really good about rolling and stretching and managing niggles and have even been doing strength sessions twice a week the last few months and feeling really good for it.

And then this.  And I am right back where I started and my lovely chiropractor is telling me that under no circumstances can I run for two weeks.  And even then I need to ease myself back into it.  Needless to say I have spent the last few days in a bit of a funk coming to terms with the fact I won’t finish my lockdown run streak and worse still I may not be able to reach my mileage target for the year – so close but no cigar!

The first few days after aggravating my back are always spent doing everything very gingerly and slowly – sitting down very carefully, standing up very carefully, everything done with the utmost care so as not to worsen the injury.  Twice this week I was late to school to collect the little girl, I left home at the same time but was clearly walking at snail’s pace rather than my usual blistering blast past everyone pace.

This weekend I have reached the point post injury where three things happen:

1. I start to wonder if I will ever be able to run again and ponder what my life will be like without running, what will I do with all that spare time, how else will I deal with all of life’s stresses and strains.  Will I finally morph into permanently angry mum?  Anyone else become this morose when they are injured?

2. I realise my back is starting to feel a whole lot better and try running a couple of little steps whilst I am out walking the dog – just to, you know, see how it feels.  Yup I have reached that dangerous point where I am most likely to succumb to re-injuring simply because I am at the point of starting to feel a bit more normal!

3. I make all kinds of wild promises to myself – I promise never to neglect strength and conditioning work ever again if I can just get back to running normally.

I need running, it really is my headspace and I am a better person for running and taking time out of running makes me appreciate this even more.  Injuries happen and healing from injuries require time and patience but heal I will and yes I will be able to run again!  One thing is for sure the less patient I am the longer it will be before I get back to running so still not running this week I promise!

Oh and yes I would be better off if I never neglected strength and conditioning ever again!

Much love xxx

P.S. A very lovely friend came and finished putting the offending flat pack desk together much to the boy’s delight!!

I am not very good at being injured ....

I am not very good at being injured – fact!!  Luckily for those around me I have been away on work trips for most of the time that I have been injured so no one has really had to put up with my sulking!!

So here’s the thing – for so long now I have been in a whirlwind of training cycles from one race to the next.   I have talked before about how having a race scheduled in is a huge motivator for me – I love a plan and I love to tick off all those hard sessions and know what I am working so hard for.  I like to know that I am getting up and out of the door for a session at the crack of sparrows or pounding away on the treadmill long after the kids have gone to bed for a reason but it wasn’t always like that.

I ran my first marathon in 2003 – I swore I would never run another and it did take me 9 years before I ran my second.  In the time between my first and second marathons running was just something I did as exercise, something to get me out of the door.  I went back to running pretty quickly after each of the kids came along as a way to lose my pregnancy weight and to get some headspace.  Running was more time effective than going to the gym – lace up and head out for 30 minutes and that was all there was to it.

Since 2012 (the year I did my second marathon in London) I have done a further 5 marathons, and who knows how many half marathons.  I have trained long and hard for each marathon and this year was set to be no different – although this is the first year that I will be doing two marathons.

And then I got injured!  And it may have taken a while but I have learnt a couple of things during this period of enforced rest:

• I really am not great at being injured – I know my buddy and I always say we are extremely lucky not to have gotten injured but I am not sure we realised how lucky we really were until we both got injured.  At first I was pretty adamant it was not a running related injury and determined to run through it which was the worst thing to do.  I finally saw the chiropractor and as soon as she said I could start running again I got straight back on plan and re-injured – cue another 5 days rest!!  So this week I have been very careful – stuck to the treadmill and kept it to easy runs – what can I say I am a slow learner!

• I have worked really hard to take the positives out of this period – and one of those is that I really need to listen to my body a bit better.  I have also now realised that I need to pay more attention to stretching and strengthening – so pilates here I come!

• But one of the biggest things to come out of being injured is remembering why I run – it isn’t all about the training plans and the medals.  Running has taken me on some amazing adventures and I have met some amazing friends on my running journey, running has been a constant for me whilst so much else has changed.  Running has been my headspace, my me time, my thinking time, my time when no one calls me Mum, time when I can work through so much – in short running makes me a better me.

So as my running buddy and I prepare to head off to Prague I know I have missed more training than for any other marathon and it has been a very different training cycle than we had envisaged.  The plan for the race is to enjoy it and have fun and remember that we are lucky that we get to run – and along the way remember why we run!!!

And then I promise to sign up to a pilates class when I am back!!

Jane xx

Aaaargggghhhh I am injured and it is only six weeks to Prague!!!

Don’t ask me what I did because I don’t know, I don’t remember doing anything to hurt my back but last Thursday when I went out for my run early in the morning it was pretty painful – you know that part where it always hurts right in your lower back?  For me it is always on the right-hand side only which I put down to the fact that I had a patella tendon realignment on my right knee in 1998 – clearly I do not know whether this is really a contributing factor or not!!!

Anyway so I persevered with my run on Thursday despite it being pretty painful because it was not actually getting any worse so surely it would just click and be alright right? WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!  By the end of Thursday it was pretty painful all the time – but this was mainly due to sitting in a meeting room all day in the world’s most uncomfortable chair and actually nothing to do with insisting on running whilst injured.  You see where I am going with this?

Finally I googled “running and backpain” – I actually wanted Google to tell me I was right to continue running whilst my back hurt because the pain was not a running related injury.  Instead I stumbled upon a neat article which suggested that I am in fact experiencing a running related injury and then asked a number of questions to establish the cause of my injury:

1. Have you been travelling recently – we all know that your body recovers and repairs when you sleep right – so I guess if you are not sleeping well because you are staying in hotels you are giving your body less time to recover
   

2. What surfaces are you running on – if you constantly pound hard pavements you are putting more pressure on your joints than if you are running on softer surfaces
   

3. Is it time for new shoes – manufacturers recommend you run 300 – 500 miles on your shoes before changing them and nowadays people tend to recommend you cycle through several pairs of shoes at a time
   

4. Have you recently upped your mileage, started training for your first marathon or are you about six weeks into a marathon training cycle?

Ok, there were a few more questions but you get the picture – GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!!!

• I have been travelling for work four out of the last five weeks, staying in hotels in the Middle and Far East – so not only am I not sleeping great in hotels, but I am also dealing with jet lag – just when I get sorted I get to go home!!
  

• At home we are blessed with some fantastic places to run off-road and it is all pretty muddy and squishy at this time of year, out here I have been running consistently on roads and pavements
  

• Alright so I do cycle through a number of pairs of shoes – Nike Wildhorses for off-road, Mizuno Wave Riders for the road, On Cloudflow for the treadmill but Strava has been telling me for ages that they all need changing!
  

• And of course I am right at the top end of my training cycle for the Prague Marathon!!!

So now I know this is a running related injury and I know I need to stretch and rest – and this is where I backed right off and rested right?  Except I didn’t!!  By Sunday I decided that my back felt a lot better so popped out for a quick run to see how it felt – suffice to say it didn’t go brilliantly (why would it – I had allowed myself two whole days of rest!) so I tried the exercise bike instead – which induced some eye-watering cracking and pain.  I had a little pity party and ran through all the worst-case scenarios – which inevitably ended with me not being able to run Prague.

After that I had a long text chat with my running buddy (the bestest running buddy in the business) who also happens to be injured.  We talked about how frustrated we are and talked about how we are literally falling apart and then she repeated the pep talk her husband had given her – which I would no doubt have had in person had I been at home.  We both said we were being very sulky and grumpy and I admitted I may have visited the Cheesecake Factory to cheer myself up!

This morning I got up early and went to the gym and walked on the treadmill – yes I just walked.  No pressure, I didn’t even try to run because finally it had clicked – I was so worried about training for Prague I just couldn’t allow myself the time to rest even though all I was doing was making things worse.  So I spent an hour listening to Ant Middleton this morning whilst walking and he is right – your mind really is your own worst enemy and patience really is a virtue!!

Jane x

P.s. I would like to thank the Cheesecake Factory who made sulking a bit more enjoyable, Ant Middleton for his wise words that finally hit home and as always my running buddy and her super human husband for always being there even if I am thousands of miles away!!!!