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My running injuries

·4 mins
running-injuries-0

\* Note: What I’ve written below are a mix of medical advice given to me by various medical professionals as well as information I personally gathered online and some unreliable hypothesis. Please read them with a pinch of salt.

I don’t know if it’s my low pain threshold, my paranoia towards injuries in general, or just bad genes but I’ve spent a good chunk of my life in the waiting rooms of various physio practices.

I also seem to have terrible memories of my injury development and treatments so I figured it would be wise to document them somewhere. And who knows, through documenting my experiences, maybe I could help others who may be experiencing something similar.

Here are my most recent injuries:

  1. Pain in my right knee
  2. Plantar fasciitis
  3. Lower back
  4. Eversion ankle sprains (when your ankle rolls outward)

Right knee #

The pain started after a 10k run in October 2019. It was cold and I hadn’t run or done any exercise in a very long time. It was a dull pain in the middle/outside of the right knee under the disk. For two years after that, I would always get this dull pain after a 5k mark when I went running which prevented me from getting back into running for a long time.

As I’ve increased the mileage over the past year, the pain has almost disappeared completely but I did go to intense physio for a month when I was back in Japan, mostly focusing on building up core strength and mobility/balance exercises.

Causes

  • tight hips, hip flexor muscles, quads (from landing in front of centre of gravity, which causes breaking = bad running economy and more pressure on my quads)
  • inactive glues and hamstrings
  • lack of flexibility in ankles
  • very weak core
  • lack of hip stability

Plantar fasciitis #

I’ve always worn a form of insoles since I was young but stopped using them after becoming more prone to twisting my ankles. But July 2022, I started feeling pain in the soles of my left foot which escalated to ankle pain and was unable to walk/run for about 3-4 weeks. I did some exercises on an app called Exakt that a friend was working on and started using insoles again. Now it’s more or less controlled and I haven’t had pain since then.

Causes

  • wearing worn-out shoes
  • increasing mileage too quickly
  • low arch

Lower back #

I always had some form of lower back pain growing up especially when I didn’t do any sports. I have been struggling from pain in my tailbone which got better when I changed my office chair and changed my desk to a standing desk.

Then, I recently started struggling with lower back pain just above my butt and numbness in my lower back, hips, down my legs, and sometimes even in my arms and shoulders. I also have this constant urge to urinate as well as some digestion issues. This started when I changed my mattress (ironically to a newer, more expensive one) and I did increase my mileage a little bit but not by too much. I also have been slacking on my cross-training and focused a bit too much on running so that may also be one of the reasons.

It’s annoying because it’s not just affecting my running and exercise routines but inhibiting my daily life. Sitting is numbing and painful, I can’t sleep and wake up feeling exhausted and I even find cycling difficult now. Most of all, the numbing sensation is really scaring me.

This started late December - January and still ongoing.

Possible causes

Eversion ankle sprains #

This tends to happen on trails and it got worse since I started wearing my insoles again. Still figuring out the balance.

Possible Causes

  • supinated feet/legs
  • weak inner thighs?

Prevention #

There are loads of things I could improve like strengthening the core, improving mobility and flexibility especially in my hips, activating my glutes and hamstrings, doing more cross training and incorporating more variety in my daily movements. I also should incorporate proper pre/post-run warm-up and cool-down routines.

The thing I find the hardest is to prioritize where to start in my injury recovery journey, sticking to the physio exercises and making it sustainable without them taking up my entire waking hours.

I think my first priority is to strengthen my core and improve my sleep environment as well as my nutrition and eating habits.

2022.01.10