Running Injuries and a few lessons

A little over three weeks ago, at about mile 14 of the split rock trail, on Antelope Island, I injured my calf. It hurt but not enough to stop me from finishing the last 4 miles. It was pretty sore the next few days but started to loosen up and feel better on Wednesday of the following week. Did a few 8 milers and decided I was good to go for a 20 miler on the Island. When we got to the gate at 6:30am, it was locked so we decided to run 8 miles on the causeway while we waited for the gate to open. Did the 8 no-prob, jumped in Troys car and headed out to run 12 more on the Mountain view trail. By the time we reached the trail head and started to run again, I guess about 15 minutes had passed. About 1/2 mile into the run, I felt a pop and a great deal of pain in my calf. I was done (and pissed). Luckily we weren't too far into the trail and my good friend Troy walked back with me and drove me back to the parking lot.
By the time I got home, my calf muscle was locked up and hurting....big time. I tried the R*I*C*E combo (rest, ice compression and elevation) along with way to must ibuprofen. For the next two days I could not use my calf muscle at all. I walked like a pirate with a peg leg.

On Tuesday I was convinced to visit the Occupational Therapist that comes into work twice a week. I'm a skeptic, but it's free so I decided to give it a try. I would have visited a voodoo witch doctor at this point. She did an analysis and suggested that it was probably a 2nd degree sprain (partial muscle tear) and could take anywhere from 4-8 weeks to fully heal. She also recommended that when the pain was minimal, I should attempt a short run. Wow! That was a lot different than I would have heard form a Doctor. He (or she) would have prescribed that I not run at all until it was fully healed. Anyway she proceeded to massage the injured area for about 30 minutes. By the time she was done, I had regained some flexibility in my calf and could walk a little better. For the next few days, I worked on the stretches she recommended and visited her again on Friday. By Saturday the pain was minimal and I could walk almost normal.

Following the Therapists advice, I went for a run on Sunday. I walked for a half mile and then ran for 3. My calf got tired real fast (from the injury and last of use for over a week) but I dont feel any worse. The next day I ran 5 miles......my calf really tightened up after that run so I took the next day off. By Wednesday I ran another 3. I felt like maybe going 5, on Monday, was a little premature and I was terrified of re-injuring the muscle. The 3 miles felt great...very little stiffness. Every other day I would try to run 3-5 miles depending on how my calf felt. I had a few moments of uncertainty when I would feel something twinge or tweek in my calf but I would stop, stretch and assess it and get going again.
I have built my miles up slowly since the injury and and actually ran the WRC on the Easter weekend. At mile 11 my calf started to get pretty sore so I just slowed down and kept going. I packed it pretty frequently with ice after the race and beside a little soreness the next day, everything seems OK. This is the big week for me, I need to start getting some longer runs in to be ready for the marathon in about 5 1/2 weeks. I'll try a 15 this weekend and go from there. Hopefully I can added a few miles to the long run each week and get back to where I need to be.

The big lessons......When you have an injury, make sure and take the necessary downtime to start the healing process. but I thinks it is important to get range of motion back as soon as possible by stretching and massage therapy. I have also learned that ice is a runners good friend as well as Ibuprofen and compression. The biggest lesson I learned is that I cannot continue to run through all injuries.

Sports Medicine Dr.

Correction..... This has been changed to Saturday the 30th.

Priority Fitness (309 West 12th Street) will be hosting a sports medicine Dr. next Saturday (Jan 30th) at 10:00am. Dr. Laura Anderson will be talking about avoiding injuries and how to start the New Year out right. Priority Fitness will have gifts and drawings for a free 6-week session.

Training Run for January 23rd

Looks like we will be running in Syracuse next weekend (Jan23). There is a Sports Medicine person speaking at a friends newly opened workout business in Ogden, at 10:00. We plan to attend this. So, we will probably be running around 7:00am. I'll post details on our training run, as well as the speaker, later this week.
Cheers

Striders Practice run this weekend

We will be running at the Dee Event Center next weekend (Jan. 16th) at 8:00am. This is a Strider's practice run on the 5K and 10K courses. We plan to run the 10 mile course.

WRC 10 miler Map