Marathon: You Can Do It

The last week I have ran only twice, the first run was a Jog on Wednesday followed by another Jog on Thursday. By my standards this was very low but it was necessary because I suffered an ankle strain on my right leg during my last 35K long run and the last thing I need now (35 days to go  before 2008 Nairobi marathon) is to suffer a serious running injury due to over training.

Over training  causes serious running injury

A good example of how running injuries are caused by over training was the large number of injured marathon runners at Beijing Summer Olympics. In the women’s marathon Paula Radcliffe ran with a strained thigh, American Deena Kostar dropped out the race after 3 miles suffering from a foot injury. Japanese Mizuki Noguchi who was favourite to win the women’s marathon did not make it to the start line after she withdrew citing fatigue. In the mens event Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya was my favourite to win the gold, but he withdrew on the eve of the race citing a thigh injury that had refused to go away.

Having these facts in my mind, I decided to focus on injury prevention. This is what I did during the week

1. Cut down on my weekly runs.

2. Iced my ankles

3. Used an anti-inflammation spray to speed recovery

4. Massaged the ankles

Marathon runners are prone to suffer running injuries due to over training because the nature of the sport is  that you need to accumulate lots of distance to be ready for an event. It is a volume business.

An interesting book I have seen on Amazon on this issue is

Running Injury Free, How to Prevent and Treat

Tags: Ankle, Marathon, Nairobi marathon, Running, running injury, Stretching, Training

Last week of I missed two days of running after I suffered a groin injury. My The groin injury happened as I was doing my speed work. At the end of the speed workout, my groin felt sore, nothing serious because I was able to walk comfortably.

Groin injury are mostly suffered by sprinters, soccer players and football player. Running at high speed strains your adductor muscles which may result into a groin injury.

I decided to give the groin a rest for two days because I remember reading a Men’s health article that said the best treatment for a groin injury is rest. Beware of sit ups, which can exacerbate groin strain.

After two days the groin felt fine and I went for a Jog, no serious running. It’s advisable to do light running after a running injury to avoid sudden recurrence of an injury.

Am now back at full running

Tags: Marathon, Running, running injury, Training

Sometimes injuries are not obvious. You can suffer some common running injuries while running and not  be aware.  Its only when you go out for your next run that you discover that your calf, knee or ankle is not well.

It happened to me after my first marathon. Six months after the marathon I returned to running and the first thing I realized was my knee was in pain. For those six months of rest I never felt a sign that I was suffering from runners knee. Many runners after running a marathon return home and get on with life, its only when they get back running that they discover a knee, calf or ankle is not well.

Why you Might not feel the pain.

Runners can carry an injury and not be aware of the injury because most injuries are felt when we apply effort. When you are walking you wont feel anything is amiss but when you try an activity that requires an effort like going up or down a staircase you will feel pain.

Detecting Hidden Injury

If you have ever suffered a pain and visited a doctor, the first thing a doctor does is to press the place you show him. Pressing is the only way a doctor can confirm whether its the correct place.

As for runners, If you bother to stretch or massage your legs after a run you might be able to detect a hidden injury. If you massage your calf’s or stretch your ankles and feel unbearable pain, it is a sign the joint or muscles has taken too much beating and needs treatment. That is why I always make sure I stretch and massage after my runs.

Tags: Massaging, Running, running injury, Stretching, Treatment

The number of athlete choosing to skip beijing olympics games went a notch higher when 2004 Olympic Bronze medallist, Vanderlei de Lima, joined Ethiopian Haile Gebresellassie(skipping marathon but running 10,000) and Kenyan Paul Tergat.

According to Reuters, my hero from 2004 Athens Olympics withdrew due to injury.

Remember this ugly scene from  2004 Olympic Games.

The Brazilian runner was attacked by a spectator while leading the marathon at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Vanderlei de Lima eventually managed a bronze medal after being shoved into the crowd by a former Irish priest, Cornelius Horan, during the latter stages of the race.

When I saw Lima sprint at the start of that race I thought that was a foolish thing to do  in a marathon but Lima defied all logic and kept going and going. With four miles to go, I was disappointed to see him being tackled after working so hard. After the tackle Lima looked like he wanted to shed tears.

The most memorable part was when Lima finally made it to the finish kissing the skies!

Picture courtesy of china daily

After the medal presentation, De Lima said: “If it were not for that lunatic, I am sure I would have won the gold.

Tags: Beijing Olympics, Inspiring Stories, Kenyan Runners, Marathon Running, Running, running injury

I have decided to stop my experiment of running on worn out trainers. I covered the experiment on my post on How to safely run on worn out trainers, risk and benefit.

Doing road Running on worn out trainers is painful to the feet and it increase the risk of suffering an injury. Despite knowing the risk involved I was trying to run in pain in attempt to build stronger legs. I thought the more I got used to the pain the stronger legs and better runner I would become.

My experiment was based on weight training principle, For a bodybuilder to build stronger and bigger muscles he has to shock his muscles with more pain.

After road running for three weeks in worn out trainers, my trainers have become so worn out such that I feel like am running barefoot. Although I posted how Ethiopian Abebe Bikila won 1960 Olympic Marathon running Barefoot, I don’t want to copy him.

Sign that you should buy new trainers

Yesterday morning I was forced to end my 10 K run midway. As soon as I started running my shoes felt light, a good sign that you should get a new pair of trainers, and after 2K of running I started feeling pain on my feet, I continued running I told myself the pain would go away. The pain kept increasing, starting on my feet, ankle and then my hip joints. By 5k my pace had slowed down and I just found myself walking.

That was the end of my experiment and now its the time to buy a new pair of trainers. Next week I will see whether the experiment really worked.

Tags: 10K Running, Ankle pain, Hip pain, Knee pain, running injury, Running shoes, Trainers