Getting Injured

One of my biggest fears on this Journey is the dreaded overuse injury. Which is why I take extra precaution to slowly build my training volume, for running in particular. It is the reason why, though my legs easily could have handled it these last couple weeks, I am still holding in the mid 40 mile per week range instead of 50+. Everything was going wonderful, in fact. As of a couple days ago, I was completely pain free in all the areas that normally hurt during running. My legs were a bit tired from a hard bike ride into the worst wind I've seen outside of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia, but, as always, they were still moving just fine. I had a long run scheduled for the day. And, though I didn't think I would make it 5 miles at first, by mile 10 I was starting to feel revived and strong. However, at mile 13 something was hurting worse than usual in the knee and didn't quite feel right. I shrugged it off at the time. Everything hurts at mile 13. Heck, I'd been struggling through most of the day, what's slightly more joint pain than expected going to do to me? Shortly after, I picked up the pace for the finishing tempo intervals and didn't notice it again until I finished. Ok, so walking on my knee was harder than normal, I'll just ice it down and it'll be good to go tomorrow, like always. Except this time it wasn't. That little worse than normal, little different than normal knee pain, turned out to be bad. Very bad.

How did this happen so fast? So unexpectedly? Could it have been the shoes? Poor form from running tired for so long? The uneven surfaces next to the path I often run on? A combination of these? I don't know. But to be safe, I will be retiring those shoes. Because now it's got me in a situation which could be a full blown injury. I don't know for sure yet. I won't run on it until it's completely healthy. My scale is, if it takes longer than a week, it's an injury. It's been a few days though, and it's only gradually getting better. It's still sore to touch. It still hurts to walk when it's not warmed up. And I still can't run on it. It's likely some form of Runner's Knee. Doesn't matter though. The formula is the same for almost all injuries. RICE. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. I can still swim. And I can still bike. So that is what I will do. Along with making sure that I don't get discouraged mentally. I expected something like this to happen. I figure it's almost inevitable. The key is to make sure to not let it get you down, and to make sure to fully heal it before running on it again. Easier said than done when running is the base your training revolves around and it is almost all you do. But a very important part of coaching yourself is having the self-control to rest yourself when you need it and for as long as you need it. And I will do that.