Pain

[Aqua-girl]

I’m on week 3. Last run 🏃‍♀️ on Thursday. But my knee hurts really bad. I don’t know whether I should rest up for longer. Go on my exercise bike 🚲. Or just go for a run 🏃‍♀️ and grin and bare the pain?? 😫 oh what to do. I don’t want to give up 🙃

[mrrun Graduate]

You simply cannot run through pain. Discomfort is ok, pain means injury. Bad pain means things could get worse. If it hurts when you're not running then it's the physio time. GP will simply prescribe some pain killers and/or anti inflammatory stuff but that's just covering the obvious. You need someone first to take a look and fix it and then advise you how to avoid it in future. I've been through all that and came out good.

[Aqua-girl in reply to mrrun]

Thank you. I wish I could afford a physio. But I can’t. Plus they never fix you in one visit either. I’ve had a bad left knee for most of my life. I think it’s just a flare up and my body saying ‘what the hell are you doing’ 😂 it’s all around the front knee and back. Constant pain. Hurts all day long. Maybe I just need to strengthen it 😊 but thanks for your advice. It’s appreciated. 🙃

[mrrun Graduate in reply to Aqua-girl]

Your GP can send you to a physio. The only reason l forked our for one (thank you MasterCard) was the long waiting list but that may be shorter where you live. She fixed me, some three months later l returned to running and some four months later my referral came through. Seven months since the application. Oh well...

[Aqua-girl in reply to mrrun]

It would be probably a longer wait down here. Hopefully strengthening myself should be the answer. And il get some insoles to.

[mrrun Graduate in reply to Aqua-girl]

Whatever you do, don't get disheartened. Any injury is fixable. Time is irrelevant, the runs will wait. Rest up first, don't run until you are ready (and you will know because you will feel it). It doesn't matter how long it takes. In the meantime do knee and general strengthening exercises and get advice on what shoes and insoles (if any) you might need. I was there, l was useless, my knee was made out of foam and then my ankle gave in, total shambles. Some years later l completed a marathon at 55 and haven't been seriously injured since. Patience, a bit of hard work and a healthy dose of self belief is all you need. You'll get there.

[SueAppleRun Graduate]

I wonder if insoles might make a difference? gel insoles with arch support made a huge difference to us and our knees are lovely now

Rest a few days before you go out again though

[UnfitNoMore Graduate]

Grinning and bearing the pain almost always leads to more pain and bigger injury.

An NHS physio can help, and give you specific exercises after assessing the injury.

Once pain free, this is an article I found very useful runnersworld.com/uk/health/...

[davelinks Graduate]

It does happen to a lot starting c25k. It happened to my wife at about that time. She rested up until the pain subsided then carried on to graduate, but, we are all different.

Don't try and run through pain. Maybe make sure your shoes have some cushioning, such as insoles that have already been mentioned.

It's early days for a physio, see how the pain goes first, so rest up from the programme for now. Using the bike may be an option..

[Aqua-girl in reply to davelinks]

The article is really interesting and I’ve started to do the strengthening exercises and exercise bike. I will do it every day to strengthen myself up before I get back to running. Thank you x

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

The guide to the plan has links to knee strengthening exercises (poor muscular support of the knee is a common cause of pain in new runners) and advice on minimising impact, which is the cause of the pain.

We cannot give medical advice and everyone is different, so getting advice from professionals is recommended.......says the man who has not run for more than five minutes in the last ten months, because of knee problems.

Take care.