Today marks a year to the day that I started my focussed training plan for running a half marathon. It was a day that lead to 17 weeks of amazing training - which taught me loads about what I was capable of, and saw me beat not only my half marathon time, but also my 10k, 5k, and mile PBs were all ground into the dust. Over 17 weeks of training, I ran approximately 4 times a week, for a total of roughly 20 miles a week - and I've never felt better. It also, of course, led to the overuse injury I got on race day marking the end of those 17 weeks.
I know now, from the work that I've done over the past 8 months of having plantar fasciitis, that I have 'lazy glutes' that don't fire properly leading to the calves and hamstrings taking most of the impact - I was stupid enough, though, to compound this with very, very rarely stretching my calves. It's like I believed having incredibly tight calves all the time was just par for the course when you became a proper runner??
I know now, from the work that I've done over the past 8 months of having plantar fasciitis, that I have 'lazy glutes' that don't fire properly leading to the calves and hamstrings taking most of the impact - I was stupid enough, though, to compound this with very, very rarely stretching my calves. It's like I believed having incredibly tight calves all the time was just par for the course when you became a proper runner??
My excitement with the levels of improvement I kept making in running, week in, week out, also lead to me to dropping almost all of my gym sessions off the plan. If I'm not running, I'm resting and recovering! ....idiot. I know there are plenty of successful runners out there who don't cross-train, but for me, my body clearly was telling me otherwise, I just wasn't listening. I stopped strengthening my muscles, working on my core strength, stretching out, working on flexibility. My beloved kettlebells grew dusty. I was still very new to running, despite having dabbled over the last 3 or 4 years, inconsistently. This was the first time I had trained with such focus, and I loved it. But I forgot everything I'd ever read about injuries. I was one of the 'lucky' ones, I just didn't seem to get injured!
Looking back, an injury was inevitable. If it hadn't been PF, it could have been an Achilles injury, or a back problem, or a knee strain... who knows? All I know is I got carried away, and am paying that price. You hear a lot of folk say they've been 'unlucky' to get an injury, but I think sometimes if they were truly honest and looked at the clues, reasons are there. I'm reading the book "Black Box Thinking" by Matthew Syed (I'd recommend it, actually), and it's teaching me that there is nothing wrong in admitting to a mistake, as long as you learn from it.
I've started cleaning my diet up again, got back into the gym, and in switching off the "fear" of foot pain, I've found cardio exercises I can do which don't put stress on the fascia. (Thanks, also, to Gayle Tait who put me on a spin bike for the first time in my entire life!!!!) I'm stretching regularly, watching my left calf like a hawk, and I've starting weight training again. I will be free of PF pain at some point, and now I'm ready to do things slightly differently, and look after my body during training, instead of just focussing on the results of what the training is achieving. I've registered for my place in the 2017 London Marathon that I get for withdrawing this year, I have no doubt I will be on that start line. Things are looking up.
(My foot still hurts, but not as much as before. Yay.)
Yay! You will get there, listening to your body all the time... except in a race, that's when you tell it to shut the fuck up and go for glory! ;)
ReplyDeleteOver-user injuries are the bane of runners, they can creep up on you with just niggles that you can easily ignore, but ignore it for too long and eventually it bites and can take a quite a while to recover. Sadly it's a lesson that most of us runners have to learn more than once before it finally sinks in - listen to your body and make sure you recover properly.
ReplyDeleteFor your own journey I do wonder if hormones were playing a part in the over-use injury. Lots of endurance training is known to increase Cortisol levels, if you are stressed elsewhere, noting eating or sleeping well then all these stressors compound each other and the Cortisol levels never get reset and the body steadily starts breaking down.
Hit intensity training such a weights are known to increase Anabolic hormones these tell the body to repair and rebuild. If your current body make up/lifestyle is such that Cortisol levels tend to be elevated then these Anabolic training activities could be crucial to balancing things out.
Good quality sleep is another way of increasing Anabolic hormones, especially during the hours 10 to 2pm thanks to the way our circadian rhythms work. If you don't get good quality sleep during this period the opportunity to take advantage of rebuilding the body is missed.
I suspect once you get things back balanced better - diet, training, sleeping managing stress, then the body should start rebuilding itself. If things are better balanced the weight should start dropping off too - as chronically high Cortisol levels are known to affect ability to maintain or loose weight.
Lots of words that really just underline that I think your are on the right track. Best of luck :-)
Lots of positive stuff Sarah!
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