Modifying Marathon training for injury?

bluefox9er

Hi Guys..i am training for my first Marathon , to take place on May 5th. I am using the Hal Higdon Novice 2 plan, and have so far made it to the end of week 10 ( please see attached image).

After my long run of 17 miles, I noticed a pain in my gluteus/hip, which presented it's self around mile 13 of the run.

I pushed through and completed my run, but felt pain in that area after.

The pain subsided almost completely after taking a combination of icing, ibuprofen and co-codomol , but came back once the effects of the pain killer wore off.

I am now about to enter week 11 ( 5 miles, 8 miles, 5 miles and 18 mile long 'run') to start tomorrow, but really do not want to make this pain any worse.

I am a novice runner, and am desperate to run my marathon, but now need to modify the training if I am to avoid making this injury even worse, but stand a chance of running on race day. There are 8 weeks before race day.

I ran my long run on saturday ( it is monday today), and spent the entire weekend and most of today resting and icing.

I would really appreciate any feedback as to how best to modify this schedule to accommodate for this injury ( I havn't taken any pain killers and my leg feels better than it did after I finished the long run).

I am hoping that it will take me no more than a week or a little longer to be recovered, but it's really too hard to tell right now.

Here is the training plan, of which week 11 starts tomorrow.




Hal Higdon Marathon 2 by Dipak49ers, on Flickr

jennalink807

I have always heard that the only thing you cant mess with is the weekly long run. Last week, I increased my squat weight too soon and strained my glute/hip; and the next day I was in pain while trying to run. What I did was slow WAY down and jog/walk half the distance I was supposed to run. Afterwards I stretched for a good long time, then I took a rest day and had no problems with a long run the day after.

I'm no expert by any sense of the word, but if I were you I'd slow it down early in the week so you're back up to strength by your long run.

arc918

You need to get healthy, no point in gutting out your long runs if they are only making you more injured.

I agree long runs are important, but never forget these training plans are guidelines, not gospel. They don't know when you feel great and they don't know when you're hurting.

Can you cross train on the elliptical machine for a few days and see how that goes?

When I'm not feeling right, I'll cut my long runs short (while I'm out running) - at some point you get into the more harm than good category.

Good luck!

trail_rnr

Taking an easy week won't set you back, especially if you are a little bit injured. It's good that it feels better already. Like arc918 says, do some cross training this week (as long as the cross training doesn't bug it). And give that leg some extra love this week (some massage before the ice; use a tennis ball or a lacrosse ball to do some trigger point work)!

Think of it as switching weeks 11 and 12 except your cycle down is just a little more down. Really, it won't make that much of a difference. If I had a nickel for every time I strayed from my schedule, I'd be able to retire soon (and I manage to do pretty well in the running dept)!