Running Smart

Ed -

I realize that I come across at times as one of those running psychos.  You know the guy.  The guy who'll run in any weather, in any pain, regardless of how stupid it makes him look he's going to tough it out and be a man, dammit.

Well I'm not really that guy.

Of course I'm not exactly a casual runner either seeing as how I'll run until I throw up now and then.  Just the fact that I have a training schedule and actually do things like track workouts, hills, flamboyant plyometrics puts me in a different category than most.  And then there's the whole running while having shingles thing.  But there's some logic to that and today gave me a good example to share.

The trick is knowing the difference between getting stronger pain, and damaging pain.

They both hurt, but they're two very different things and should be treated differently.

I'll start with the shingles.  It's the chicken pox virus that hangs out in your spinal cord waiting for the right moment when your immune system is weak, lazy or whatever then it pops up again and runs wild on your nerve endings popping up to your skin and looking like poison ivy or hives.  It itches, burns and is surprisingly painful in a deep bruise or broken bone sort of way.  But the truth is there is no broken bone and no bruise.  No damage at all except to the nerve endings and they're just transmitting phantom pain because of the inflammation around the virus.  The only course to fixing this is to build up your immune system and try and avoid tension related stress.  "Relax" the doctor says.  Well how many times have you heard that exercise relaxes you?  It does, and it promotes a healthy immune system by increasing oxygen and lymph system flow throughout your body.

Ergo....no reason to stop exercising just because shingles hurts.

Of course you want to pay attention to it and make sure it's not spreading or whatever, and those first couple of weeks are not the time to toss in a PR attempt at a marathon, but there's nothing wrong about moving through the pain and continuing to keep your body in motion.

The pain in training that comes from massive lactic acid build up in an interval session is getting stronger pain.  It hurts.  It  makes your stomach do flips because your body is not using oxygen as energy because your demanding more energy than your body can deliver that way.  You push a little beyond the edge and you fall on the track at the end of a quarter or you lean over your knees at the top of that last hill and just puke your guts out.  Not comfortable, not fun, and it definitely hurts.

But your body is not damaged, and it knows it.

Your body takes that experience and says, "I need to expand these lungs a little bit and also add some mitochondria to the blood stream so I can get more oxygen around and avoid this crap next time."

And it does.

Muscle cells are added, capillaries are added, blood cells are added, circulation systems change, tendons strengthen, bones strengthen.  It's all a very cool part about being a human.  We can make ourselves better by stressing ourselves in certain ways.

The pain I felt this morning however was different.

My left hip got tight a couple of weeks ago towards the end of my quarter workout, but felt better the following week.  Maybe because the shingles hurt so damn bad I wasn't thinking about.  However, during the last two runs of last week I felt it tug again towards the end of each run.  Today it got sharp right around when I hit 8.5 miles.

I was going to run 10 today, but two weeks ago with the beginning of shingles I ran only 13 miles for the week and last week I did 24.  That's too big a jump in one week and that's where injuries happen.  I turned down a street early and cut the last mile off my run because I could tell if I pushed it I'd be limping by the end and lose the next two weeks of training to "taking it easy."  Tonight I'll ice it down, rest tomorrow and do 7 on Wednesday.

Damaging pain is not something to ignore or "run through" because you can't.  When that sharp stab starts showing up in a joint or the ball of your foot, it's time to shift things and see if it gets better, and if it doesn't it's time to stop running.  I have been surprised how many times a pain in my knee was solved by switching to the other side of the road and changing the camber I was running on, but when that doesn't do it, I've learned not to ignore it.

 

This is damage.  Don't run through it.

Learn the difference between the pains, and Run On!