How to Overcome (and Maybe Even Appreciate) a Running Injury

After months of diligent training, where you have been ramping up your mileage and seeing some real gains...BAM! Suddenly you are injured! Suddenly all your race goals are slipping away. Not so suddenly, you find that the injury is not going away without a fight. You are now definitely, formally and officially, sidelined for who knows how long. Great. Just great.

You try to rest the injury, and maybe even do some of your own diagnosis and rehabilitation based on some articles or videos you found on Google or YouTube. You even seek the expertise of fellow runners on social media (how could that go wrong?). Now, in addition to dealing with the injury, you are having to deal with your own depression and crankiness. Even your significant other, family, co-workers, fellow runners, and passers-by are starting to dread being around you. How are you possibly going to get through this, survive this, without ending up serving time in a maximum-security prison?

For starters, you will need to channel all of your efforts into working through your unwelcome situation in a calm, methodical and strategic manner. You will need to come to grips with where you are, how you got there, and how you can make the absolute best out of the situation you are in. If you are reading this article, perhaps that means you are ready to try a unique approach. So, let’s dig in. This will be both helpful and cathartic, I promise!

Firstly, it is unlikely that you were “suddenly” injured. There is a good chance that whatever body part is injured started showing warning signs along the way. So, as a first step, we will try to learn what we can from the injury. Think this through and write down your answers for the following questions:

· My injury is:

· In retrospect, potential warning signs were:

· If I picked up on (or paid attention to) these warning signs, I might have been able to prevent the injury by:

Secondly, consider seeking exert/medical assistance. Honestly answer the following questions:

· Am I confident that I know what my full/true underlying injury is (beyond just knowing where it hurts)?

· If I could pay to receive some medical expertise and assistance to cut my recovery time in half, would that be worth it to me?

· How effective has my current self-rehabilitation been?

· Is it possible that my injury is more extensive or involved than what I initially thought?

Thirdly, take inventory of where you are, what you can or cannot do, and try to salvage your training or your race, if possible. Again, we will do this by reflecting on and answering the following questions:

· What alternate types of exercises or cross-training can I still do that either won’t aggravate, or might even help my injury? (Can you bike, use the elliptical, swim, strength train, etc.?)

· How much of a creative and hybrid approach can I build to keep up my endurance, strength and aerobic training?

· Can I build a completely new training plan to incorporate these alternate exercises into my routine and still allow adequate time for my injury to heal (remembering that it is better to go into a race under-conditioned than injured).

Based on this modified approach, you may need to rework your training plan weekly, if not daily. See what each day brings, but work hard to do any type of exercise you can that will still allow your injury to heal. See any progress as a win, even if absolutely no running is involved. You will truly be shocked at how many alternative exercises you can find that still allow you to at least maintain your conditioning. You might even find that this approach gives you extra time to strength-train, or to work on your cardio to a higher level on an elliptical trainer. This could also give you the opportunity to work on any other areas that might have turned into an injury down the road.

Above all else, do everything you can to keep a positive attitude and learn from the challenges, both mental and physical, that you had to work through in dealing with this injury. Once you “survived” this injury and experience, be sure to also reflect back at the notes and alternate training plans you created through this process to learn everything you can to prevent not only a re occurrence of this same injury, but of other potential injuries not yet experienced. It is not the falling down that will make you stronger, but rather the approach you take each time you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and find new ways to persevere!