Running away from Injury.

I’m hoping this post doesn’t in some way jinx my current running feeling as it’s currently very enjoyable being able to run uninjured regularly. If you’ve followed this blog last year you should be aware that I had a really crappy year with injury mostly the calf on my right leg and spent most of the year trying to get my body uninjured and ready to run.

With the latter half of last year dedicated to getting my strong and easing my way back into to running I have been able to stay injury free for about three months so far. It’s a great feeling being injury free and able to run consistently. When I began running again I began slowly and not very far, I eased my back into cautiously and hesitantly, I initially had a real fear that I would reinjure myself so I iced my legs after every run, wore compression sleeves on my calves after runs, and gave myself plenty of rest days in fact more rest days than running days to start with.

Fats forward only a few months and the slow frustrating progress has been worth it, I am now confident to up my mileage regularly still with a cautious mind. I have recently entered a race, I’ve entered Red Rock to Coffs Harbour which is 45km along the beach that separates these towns on the North Coast of NSW Australia. I am now confident that I will be fit, prepared and ready to run a good race on March 15th. My long run last week was 33km which I was able to run at 4:55 min/km with 12 km of running on soft sand. I will continue to cautiously increase my running mileage in preparation for this race. Most of all I am enjoying being able to run and increase my mileage with confidence. I was never able to do that last year, every time I got started again I got reinjured and was constantly fighting to get back out there running starting from scratch each time.

I will continue to spend time working on my strength in the gym. The weights and exercises that I now regularly do have been wonderful in preparing my body to run again. Without committing to doing this work I would most likely be still injured or reinjured after starting running again. I will also continue to work on my running technique following the pose method drills. These have been very important in relearning to run correctly and efficiently.

There is probably nothing more frustrating for a runner than wanting to go running and not being able to due to injury. Staying injury free is a gift you never want to give back after being injured for a while. It’s a gift I planning on working hard on keeping by doing the things that are right for my body to stay injury free and running. Because a runners gotta run.