King of Pain - The Police

How many times have you heard, ‘I’ve got a bad (insert the relative strain or injury here) but it’s okay to run on if I take some pain killers'. I've heard it said a thousand times and luckily, over my thirty plus years of running, I’ve been lucky enough to have survived injury free - well apart from a couple of life-threatening illnesses of course.

 

Now what to do when you are injured is one thing. How to stop being injured in the first place is another matter and far more important imho.

 

I’ve always worked hard on doing just this by concentrating my energy on the bio-mechanical aspect of my running. Coming late into the sport at 31, my bones were probably completely fossilised and following years of relative inactivity, I started my running career injury-free.

 

And very soon, I worked out that the type of running shoes that you wear make things a whole lot easier on the body. A boring mid-priced shoe that stopped my over pronation did the trick. I found that the flashier the trainer was, the less it helped, and I tried every brand back then, I can assure you. Saucony won back then btw.

 

Having the correct shoes has helped me and my clients until the past ten years or so when the lighter, less supportive foam soled trainers appeared on the market. IT Bands suddenly became hurty and knees ached.  Recently I’ve blogged on the New Balance and Brooks trainers I've been using and their potential injury issues.

 

With the right shoes, I believe in having some private health insurance if things do go wrong. Let's face it your GP and the local A&E dept aren’t really interested in running injuries. However, for £100/month private health insurance companies are all ears in providing MRI scans, specialist consultants and even knee clinics, with no expense spared.

 

So from now on, please take my advice and stop if anything hurts and pay for some private medical insurance - you are going to need it one day. And if you are stuck in a rut and don’t know what to do, then contact me as I'm sure I can help.

Enjoy your running, remember that? I mean, isn’t that why we started in the first place...

1,192 Marathons - 279 Ultras - 17 Marathon des Sables - 9 GWR - One Life