Injury Recovery - A Mental Game

Hello Runners!,
For those of us who have gone through major/significant injuries - or at least injuries that have kept us sidelined for a week or more - it would be obvious for me to say that injury recovery is as much mental recovery as physical.  The biggest questions that loom for runners recovering from injury is "How soon is too soon?" and "How much is too much?"  These perplexing questions can wreak havoc with a runners injury recovery attempt.


In my personal opinion, injuries can often be compounded by a runner starting to run too soon, or doing too much running before a full recovery.  The decision on when to come back from an injury and how soon to get back into full training mode is one that that I, as well as many runners I'm sure, struggle with.  For any somewhat serious runner who is training for a goal race or goal time, the decision on when to start training again and in what capacity that training entails is a fine line.  I want to both maximize my recovery time and minimize my time off.  Of course, these are opposing thoughts - repelling magnets, a contradiction of ideas - if I say so myself.


What percentage of recovery should a runner be at in order to begin training again?  100%?  90%  If I feel my knee is 75% recovered, is that enough?  It's my goal to rest long enough as to not re-aggravate my injury, yet get back to running as soon as possible as to minimize the amount of training I miss.  Sure I could wait until I feel my knee is 100% better, but is that necessary?  Would it be worth an extra 2-3 weeks of not running when I could probably be running on it at 85-90% without much worry of re-aggravation?  Taking off too much time can significantly affect a runners fitness and hurt ones chances of accomplishing a seasons running goals.  On the flip side, if a runner starts running again with an injury at only 60-70%, with slight pain or discomfort - is the runner risking a significant injury again?  Would I be best to just take an extra week off to get the injury to 90% so they can do more significant training instead of short, easy runs only 2-4 days a week?  Making these decisions aren't easy, and no one wants to be constantly sidelined because they repeatedly get injured.  Finding that fine line between recovering from an injury and maximizing your training is a key to finding success in accomplishing your running goals.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.  What are your thoughts on injury recovery?

Back on the Track - Part 2

Hello Runners!,
Today was my first day back on the track after my knee ailment.  With my knee still a little tender, I wanted to just "ease" into some speed work.  I started off with my normal, 2 mile warm-up.  I stretched a bit and had no knee pain so I decided to give the track a go.  My plans was to start off with 2x800 with ~3min rest between.  I wanted to start off with 800's instead of 400's because I run my 800's at a slower pace, thus putting less pressure on my knee.  I ran both 800's at around 6:40 mile pace, or in 3:50.  My legs felt pretty good so I ran 2x400 at 90 sec pace.  This pace was significantly slower than previous 400's, where I was running 75-80 sec quarters.  Regardless, I finally got back into some up-tempo running and my knee hasn't been acting up.  I made sure to ice and rest my knee immediately after the run.  My plans is to do a short run tomorrow (Friday), rest on Saturday and hopefully get out for a 7-8 mile run on Sunday.  Assuming all goes well I plan on being back on the track on Tuesday (7/17) for a timed mile attempt.  Here's to resting and recovering well!!

Knee Strengthening Exercises

Hello Runners!,
I'm back up and running!  On Monday I had planned to run 2 miles and instead ran 3 because I felt so good!  Ok, that's a bit of a lie as I didn't feel great but my knee felt better than I thought it would, therefore I upped the mileage a little but still wanted to make sure I'm not doing too much too soon.  Yesterday I did a nice, slow 4.5 mile run.  Today, REST!


On Monday and again today I did a few knee strengthening exercises.  I found this nie little video on knee strengthening exercises on the Runner's World web site. I've since incorporated some of these exercises into my workout, with plans to perform these 3 times a week.




Tomorrow I'm back on the track.  My knee is still a little weak but it feels miles better than it did last week.  Therefore, I'm going to see if I can do a moderate workout tomorrow.  I would like to get on the track and run a few 800's at around 6:30-7:00min pace to see how my knee responds.  Any sign of discomfort and I'm shutting it down.  In the meantime, I'm going to continue to do some strengthening exercises and hopefully will get back into some speed workouts next week.  Once again, keeping my fingers crossed.  

Walk to Run

Hello Runners!,
I just finished a 2 mile walk.  It's my second day of testing my knee strength.  Yesterday I walked 1 mile.  I have to say, my knee is feeling somewhat better.  It's still weak and tender, but I was able to walk more or less pain free.  Tomorrow is Monday, and I'm going to try and start the week off by doing a 2 mile run.  SLOW.  I think I'll do a mile around the track and then take off my shoes and do a mile barefoot on the infield grass.  I'm hoping a little bit of barefoot running will help get me back to a more natural stride and help to strengthen my knee.  It's been a pretty demoralizing week and weekend just sitting around the house resting and icing my knee.  Therefore, I'm not really in the mood to write much about my training (or lack-there-of).  I'm pretty sure my injury is Runner's Knee.  The best way to recover - rest, reduce mileage, stretch, ice, and slowly incorporate knee strengthening exercises.  What are those knee strengthening exercises you may ask?  I don't know... because I haven't started doing them yet!  Ha!  As i figure out what kind of exercises to do, I'll make sure to post them in my blog.  Anyway, that's it for day, good night and good luck... running that is!

4th of July - Heat - Injury - Ugh!

Hello Runners!,
Happy 4th of July!  This is a great time of year.  Food, fireworks, beer.  I love it all.  What I don't love, is getting injured.  And that's exactly what happened to me a couple of days ago.  I finished off a pretty tough month of training in June and I was looking forward to keeping the trend going in July.  I started the month off by doing a 9.5 mile run on July 1st.  I felt great.  On the 2nd, I rode my bike to Riverside park, did a 5.5 mile run, and then rode home.  It was wicked hot on the 2nd and I was quite fatigued afterwards, but hey, I've been there before.  Then I woke up the 3rd.  My right knee was pretty stiff and sore.  As I was walking around the house I felt a pop in my knee (like cracking knuckles), and then another, and then another.  Not long after, I could barely bend my knee let alone push off on it.  Oh man, this sucks.  I more or less laid on the couch the rest of the day to rest my knee.  I'm not quite sure what caused my knee to give but I think it must be overwork.  I had a pretty intense final 2 weeks of June.  I had been doing some biking along with my running (sometimes on the same day) and i went golfing in 3 or the 4 days leading up to the injury.  

Fireworks in Wauwatosa.
I like the trailing bursts and the full moon!

Unwisely, I didn't give my knee any rest on the 4th despite the pain.  I should have just stayed home and laid on the couch all day, icing my knee and resting it.  Instead I went golfing.  It really didn't bother me for the first 6 holes but the last 3 were not great.  Thankfully we were in carts and I didn't have to walk around much.  After golf I drove 1.5 hours to Milwaukee.  This was not good for my knee.  The knee is stationary for almost the entire drive and it swelled and tightened up.  I watched the fireworks in Wauwatosa with a few friends (check out one of my fireworks pictures).  I then had to drive home today (another 1.5 hours of a stationary knee).  As soon as I got home I started to rest.  30 minutes of ice followed by 30 minutes off.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  i also took some ibuprofen to reduce the pain and swelling in my knee.  I'm a little concerned now that this injury might be something serious, keeping me sidelined for a few weeks.  Ugh!!  Just when my training was really starting to go well and I've felt significant improvement in my speed.  Right now I'm hoping that I'll just have to rest through the weekend and that I can get back into working out sometime next week.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!  Good luck everyone!  I hope you enjoyed your 4th of July holiday :)