March 2017 Running Challenge

In for 100 miles of running. I am also doing 1000 squats and 60 minutes of planks for the month.

March 1st Ontario Canada...running in shorts!! It was a very wet run today, but very mild!!!

We've decided to spend Easter weekend in Kansas City this year since my daughter's college team will be playing in a national tournament there. My wife gave me three choices for lodging. I surprised her by picking the most expensive option. I didn't bother to tell her that I picked it because it was just a mile away from TRAIL RUNNING!! I've already got a 17 mile route planned.

lporter229 wrote: »

MNLittleFinn wrote: »

Run went well, but now the left side of my right knee HATES me. It just seems like if it's not one thing it's another. My left leg is feeling OK today, so, OF COURSE, my right leg hates me....Go figure.....good thing I have a rest day tomorrow and a DR. Appointment on Friday.

Is it "normal" to have these roving pains while marathon training?

Yes, yes and more yes. As I think @Orphia stated in the Feb thread, you will always have some sort of niggles that bug you. You just have to pay attention to them and figure out when it might be something more. I would never advise anybody from seeking a professional consult for any aches and pains that are bothersome. At the same time, you can also drive yourself crazy if you worry about every little ache and pain.

I have not had to deal with too many injuries over the years, but in my experience, I know when it's something to be concerned about if it doesn't go away after a week or two, if it intensifies as I run, and if it's not better after a day or two of rest. Maybe some others can jump in and give you their experiences on determining the difference between an overuse injury and normal wear and tear. Right now I am dealing with my hamstring issue. I am still not sure if it's an actual injury/condition, but I know that the soreness has been getting worse instead of better and a few days of rest did not make it go away, so that is why I decided to seek the advice of a PT.

@MNLittleFinn - I agree with what @lporter229 says, and there's the additional considerations of you being a relatively new runner and this being your first marathon. That gives you a lot of uncertainty in distinguishing between minor niggles and injury that requires more attention. You don't always understand what's going on in real time, and you have no prior marathon training experience to compare it to.

I didn't have any training niggles before Buffalo 2015, because I didn't really train. I just ran long runs with a training group, and other runs on my own. I didn't do much in the way of speed work, and what I did required entry fees.

I trained hard for Boston 2016, and I had those niggles. I didn't understand them, and I would have run myself into injury if my coach hadn't been telling me to back off. Even so, I managed to run myself into injury after Boston 2016.

I trained lightly for Rochester 2016, and had injury recovery issues instead of training niggles. Got healthy, ran a great half marathon at Oak Tree, and developed one of those niggles that turned out to be something more. But I didn't understand that it was something more until after my failed attempt at the full marathon. In 20-20 hindsight, I should have traded down to the half.

Now I'm in my third training cycle, for my fourth attempt at a marathon. And when I get one of those niggles, I'm backing off. First thing to back off is speed work. I've done this enough to know that hard speed work is more hazardous to my body than lots of miles. Second thing to back off is take an extra rest day. Third thing is to cut miles, which frequently comes as a consequence of an extra rest day anyway. Earlier in the training cycle, I got to where I felt overtrained, and I backed off. Felt healthy the next week, but the trip to Bend cut my miles anyway. Came back home, and I've felt great . . . except for a niggle in my right foot this morning.

So this morning I spent some time paying attention to my foot and trying to figure out whether it's something to worry about. It doesn't seem to be a stress fracture. It reacted more like a strain to some sort of soft tissue. The foot tolerated barefoot weighted calf raises, and even felt better after them. But I also had a couple other niggles yesterday evening that got better with a night's rest. They showed up after the hard intervals last night, but they didn't show up after the hard intervals a week ago. Check records. Okay, the shoes I wore yesterday now have 527 miles on them. Time to retire them, and see if that improves things. Even if I could squeeze a few more miles out of them, it's a cheaper to retire a pair of shoes early than to have doctor visits.

Sometimes you have to pay attention to a lot of little details to figure out what's really going on. In your specific case, what I'm seeing you write is a lot of, "I ran faster than I should have," and some of, "various body parts hate me." The two phenomena might be connected. You find out by slowing down and seeing whether your body likes you better.