Obsessed Runner Blog
On Good Pain: Injury Prevention
On Good Pain
If you run and you're normal, your body has a few aches and pains, especially in the morning. Marathoners do a lot of limping and creaking in the morning. Heel and foot pain, joint stiffness, and sore backs are the most common. Pains that go away after you warm up and get moving should not be ignored, but I consider these normal training pains. Ignoring these pains will cause a serious injury.
Is Running Healthy?
Running takes a bad rap as a sport for long term health so I'm quick to read things that dispel such stuff. I'm just a 51 year old kid who has run just about every day for 30 years and I'm kicking butt! So there.
I was sent an article from the February 2001 issue of Discovery Magazine reporting on a study by physicist and biomechanist Benno Nigg. The study shows the impact and motions from life long running are not nearly as damaging as once thought. From the following information taken from the article (taken out of context), I was ready to write an article about what a bad wrap running has taken in the press.
"He and others doing similar studies found no relation between the magnitude of impact forces and the injury rate in runners. Fast runners for example, land with two to three times the force of slower runners, yet in Niggs studies they were injured no more frequently.
Crummy little race or is it?
The race registration line moved slowly as sun rose and the mercury hit the 80 degree mark. The start was 45 minutes late. They ran out of T-shirts for pre-registered runners, luckily it was a no brand 50/50 blend with some cheesy clip art and a bunch of poorly placed sponsor logos. The course was short, mile marks were in the wrong place, cars forced runners off the road and volunteers steered us the wrong way. Some guy was giving split times at the mile, nice touch, times that were off by 2 minutes. The early aid station ran out of water, the later one ran out of cups. The finish shoot was backed up and I was forced to stand in place as some guy puked on my shoes. They ran out of water at the finish area and the only food left was some green bananas. The results took hours to get posted, the times were off and the awards ceremony dragged on for an eternity. The award was a small medal with a wreath on it, no date, distance or information pertaining to the event. The entry fee was $20early.
We have all ran in a race with some or all of the above glitches. Could we have avoided entering such debacles? Sometimes. By just looking over an entry form you can usually get the idea of how the finished product will end up.