Injured, again.

For as long as I have been running, I have only ran 1 half marathon. Crazy, right? Well I thought it was high time to change all that, so I went and signed up for the Wildwood Games. It's a local trail race here in my county and I'm running it with Team RWB! 

I've really been looking forward to running another half. Especially because I was injured when I ran my first half.

Well...



I've gone and done it again.

For a long time now my left knee has been... funky. Rarely hurts but gets stiff and clicky. I thought it was runners' knee at first even though I never get kneecap pain, it's always on  both sides of my knee. I ruled out the IT band because the symptoms just don't match up. Now I'm pretty sure I know what it is. 

My hamstring is either way tight or strained. It's the bottom of the hamstring/behind the knee. There is no bruising. It just feels very tight and I'm finding it hard to fully extend my leg without bending my knee. Up until Monday I wasn't having hamstring issues, just the weird clicky knee. I did speed work on Monday and during/after that run is when my hamstring started to feel tight. Guess it just had enough? 

Of course this happens 2 weeks before my half marathon! 

I haven't run since Monday, I'm using ice, moist heat, my Stick, compression wrap, and today I am just now getting into some light stretching. I stretch my hamstrings after every run and do plenty of leg strength work. This is probably an overuse injury, and there's probably a reason why it's my left leg only. It's not really THAT bad. I think it will be better soon.

As much as I hate the timing of all this, I'm not totally devastated about not being able to run. Since I've started lifting weights more I don't feel totally helpless when I can't run. If this had happened 6 months ago I'd feel utterly doomed. But now I am able to look at it with a more realistic and laid back view. I will run again soon. The world is not ending! I can go kill it in the gym, get a great workout and feel awesome. 

Not really sure how this is gonna go for me next weekend. But I'm gonna try my best to run this race and not be injured!

0 comments:

Post a Comment