Pain & injuries!

[sarahji]

I'm feeling disappointed because I am having a slow start due to hip pains and shin splints, the shin splints I'm not too worried about as it's seems generally something that happens in the beginning and once the trainers, stretches and rests are sorted it can be overcome. I'm a bit worried about the hip pains I got on my last run (W2R1) On the penultimate walk, my hip joints seemed to turn to jelly and really ache, I practiacally hobbled home (there was some shin pain but not unbareable and definately better than in WK1).

I was so unconfortable that I didn't know what to do with myself, I took ibuprofen & within an hour the pain was completely gone, I was fine the next day apart from a few niggles. That was Thursday, I found info on the net saying I should rest for 5 days (boring!) so that's what I'm going to do. Then yesterday, out of the blue, I could feel a tightening sensation in my right calf muscle, then it went to a pain behind my knee, then my knee felt like something had snapped behind the knee cap...strangely it all feels ok today.

So all in all, quite a lot of aches & pains for only 4 runs so far!!! It's not like I wasn't active before, I'm used to doing quite high impact aerobics, so stamina is not an issue, it's the body not being able to keep up....any advice would be greatly appreciated

[bizzyb Graduate]

Although we are all supposed to do after run stretches half the time I never did but now I use a dvd for this bit. I have 2 "10 minute solutions" dvds, one is yoga, one is pilates. When I get back from my run I do the last section (cool down and stretching) from each one.

This has made a big difference to my after run aches and pains and has shown up that I need to work on my suppleness and flexibility as I can only approximate half the stretches, anyway as long as I continue to do them in the long run I should improve.

[sarahji]

That's a really good idea, I have a Davina McCall DVD with really good warm-ups & cool downs, I was thinking of using them before & after runs & also on rest days as they are very low impact but great stretches...thank you