Aches and Pains

I've been blogging recently about how I love running. However, it’s not all fun and games and good times. I've already been experiencing a lot of aches and pains in my marathon training. There is normal muscle soreness and blisters, which I expected, but I've also had other stuff going on that’s been frustrating.

For one, I’ve been getting lateral foot pain, to the point where it hurts when I walk. It usually doesn’t hurt too badly while I’m running, but after a run it flares up. I asked my dad about it and he doesn’t think it’s a typical area for a stress fracture, so I think it’s tendonitis - probably involving my fibularis muscles.

Then there’s my IT band syndrome. It doesn’t bother me too much, but my IT bands are tight after I run. Sometimes they get pretty sore and achy and I have to roll them out. I really need to get a foam roller or a marathon stick and then I think this won’t be too much of a problem.

My biggest issue is my right knee. It’s the most problematic because the pain starts getting bad towards the end of a long run, and it gets so intense that I have to stop running. It is so frustrating to have to stop and walk because of my knee, but I don’t want to injure myself by running when I’m in pain. My knee not only hurts, it feels unstable, like it’s going to collapse. As a PT-to-be I’ve tried to diagnose myself. I think my knee pain could be due to the fact that I have weak hip abductors on my right side. That weakness could be putting more strain on my right knee. I really need to start doing some hip strengthening exercises to see if that helps with my knee and foot pain.

Anyway, this isn’t a post to complain, just to be honest about some of the problems I’ve had while training. Marathon training isn’t easy and my muscles need to adjust. Even though I’ve been running pretty consistently for over a year now, some of my muscles are still weak. I’ve found that with previous aches and pains I just have to do what I can, rest when I need to, and listen to my body. Many of my previous musculoskeletal problems have gone away on their own. I hope this darn knee pain goes away soon!