Apparently it's good training for a manual therapist to experience the injuries they treat. If that's the case, then I'm a slightly better therapist after my latest injury at the English Fell running championship in the lake district last weekend..
After a 3-hour drive to the Lake District, my legs were feeling a bit tight but I managed a couple of km warming up gently on the hillside. I felt pretty good at the start line and although the height and angle of the first climb were out of my comfort zone, in my mind I felt confident that the adrenaline of race day supersedes inadequate training. In reality, that may have been the case 20 years ago, but I'm now officially a v45, and it turns out appropriate training, warm-up and race morning routine really are important these days.
The race was just over 12km with 1000m of elevation, and we set off straight onto a steep climb. I was feeling pretty strong and was sticking to the heels of an old training buddy from London. I was just thinking that maybe training is overrated and I was going to have a good race but then I felt a sudden, sharp pain in the back of the calf. Literally felt like I'd been shot in the calf with an air rifle. The pain was intense, maybe an 8 out of 10, but it was so sudden it really shocked me. I stopped for a second, rubbed it and tried to carry on, but the pain wasn't easing and there was no way I could run through it. I limped for a few metres, rubbed it again, tried to jog again and realised that it was not happening. It was so obviously a calf tear that even if I could carry on (which I couldn't have done if my life depended on it), it would have been a terrible idea. I felt sick and teary with a combination of the pain in my calf and the knowledge that I was going to be unable to run for a while. But I also had to get down from the mountain; the last of the runners had passed me, and I couldn't justify calling mountain rescue, so I embarked on a horrible shuffle back down the mountain to the start of the race.
The pain was getting slightly worse, and even limping along was causing quite intense pain. There was a bit of swelling around the calf, and putting any form of pressure on it was utterly excruciating. I sat on my arse in the mud waiting for the lead runners to finish, luckily it was warm and the course was quite short so it was only a few minutes before Finlay Grant came through having broken the course record. I sat around feeling slightly awkward as everyone else finished the race, congratulated one another and asked me what was up. It was actually a real eye-opener to experience the shame of being injured. It's something I discuss with clients a lot but there's nothing like living it to make you really appreciate how it feels.
Recovery has been really good and after a couple of gentle sports massages I'm going for gentle jogs now, just a week later. The lessons I've learned? I'm making more of an effort to focus on very runner specific strength training for the gastrocs and the soleus. I'm being more sensible about warming up (especially if I've just been sitting in a car for 3 hours) and I'm planning to make my training more reflective of the races I'm aiming to compete in, so for me this means some fast, hard hill sessions. Now the pain has gone and I'm running again I'm grateful to be back running again and feel I've learned a useful lesson about looking after my own body.
All the best,
Joe