This is the first of a series of blogs I intend to write about my journey to my first marathon.
In this first one, I talk about injuries.
Training for a marathon is not easy. It involves making detailed plans on how long you intend to run each week. It involves keeping to those plans and going out for runs when you don't feel like them. It involves going for long, hard runs that seem like they are taking forever.
I can do all those easily. I look forward to my long runs. The thing I struggle the most with is injuries.
Running 30-50km a week is rough on your body, especially when you are not used to it. You get hungry more. You feel sore often. I rarely felt 'fresh' coming into a run and always had some minor niggle. But running is very high impact on your entire body, especially everything below the waist.
Here is a list of injuries I've had since starting to run, just this year alone:
1) Sore calves
This was near the start of my running journey, when I was ramping up zero to 3 times a week of running, and eventually 4 times a week. I developed sore calves pretty often which really bothered me... until I picked up compression socks which seemed to alleviate the issue.
2) Feet arch pain
The arches of my feet would get really tight or sore during/after a run, which affected my ability to run in the subsequent session. This went away almost entirely when I got my Asics GT-2000, a shoe for moderate overpronators. I also massage my arches with a lacrosse ball often now.
3) Feet (tendon?) issues
The best way to describe this is pain or discomfort in the upper side of my foot, somewhere midfoot. This often set in somewhere between 8-11km of my long runs, and usually went away after a while or perhaps I just get numb to it.
I did have one episode where it got so bad that I had to stop at 8km of a 12km run, and bailed on the run (first time ever) , as I could barely walk without a sharp pain shooting through my foot. It got better after some rest, but I had to take a full week off running to recover.
Nowadays it bothers me on and off, but doesn't really flare up mid run.
4) Sciatic nerve / psaos issue?
There are two variations of this - one deep discomfort/twinge in my right glute, the other where my lower right back gets tight. I've no idea what they are till this day, and no amount of pigeon / figure 4 stretches will make them fully go away. They usually don't bother me on a run though, though I can feel a bit stiff because of it.
5) Achilles tendonitis / calf issue?
After my 24km run, which was the longest I had ever covered in my life, my calves were sore the next few days. Even when I resumed the following week's run, they continually felt tight and occasionally sore, and all runs my legs felt heavy and tired. In the next long run, which was planned for 25km, I only made it about 6+km when my Achilles tendon / ankle / calf area started to feel really sore and unnatural (not the usual discomfort I get) and did not go away even after slowing down for 1km. I decided to bail on the run at 8km and Grab home.
Tried to resume running 2 days later in a short 6km run, but only made it to 3km and decided to bail as the calf got very sore. The location is best described as the lowest end of the fleshy part of my calf, seems to be where it meets my tendon. I took that whole week off, and as I'm writing this I'm entering a 50% load week where I halved the distance of the week I missed. I'm not sure if I've recovered, but I've cleared 2 runs this week, 3km and 6.4km. Hoping to do a 4km tomorrow and then a 9.6km on the weekend. Pray my calf doesn't flare up.
Gotta do those eccentric heel drops which seem to help a little? No idea what's the science behind them.
6) ???
Will I have any further injuries? Who knows?
I'm working consciously to reduce the risk of injury - many core and glute exercises on a regular basis, regular foam roll / stretching. If I successfully complete this marathon and decide on a future marathon, I'll definitely take the off season to do some weights training to strengthen my body more to be able to bear the load of marathon training. It is a tough sport, but there is something euphoric about being on the road for 2-4hours with nothing but your legs, a podcast, and you debating with yourself whether to stop.
