Dealing with a Running Injury? Pushing Through and Stopping Aren’t Your Only Options
You’ve been putting in the work, setting the early alarm or hustling to get your work out done before picking the kids up, and have been loving the quiet time running is helping you carve out for yourself. The event you’re signed up for is getting closer and you’ve been following your plan but just as you’re starting to feel good about the progress you’re making in training, your knee starts to act up.
Unfortunately for many runners, this scenario will sound way too familiar. Injuries are a common part of running and maybe even more common for running moms. Challenged sleep habits, less time for strength training, body changes during pregnancy, and ramping up training among a load of other stresses, both physical and mental, that come with being a mom are all factors that increase risk for injury.
At first it’s not too bad, just a little stiffness when you first get started or at the end of your run, but it keeps getting a little worse and is starting to distract you from locking into the podcast you saved for your long run and now you’re stuck deciding what to do. Do I push through or stop?
Push through is often the default. As moms and runners, we're used to powering through a busy day after a night of interrupted sleep. Isn’t a little bit of pain normal for running anyway? The worry of losing the progress we worked so hard to make often keeps us pushing forward.
The problem with push through is that it can cause pain and injury to become more chronic and eventually disrupt training for a longer period of time. Sort of like piles of laundry, easy to put back in the basket and ignore at first but then when you finally tackle it, it’s transformed from a pile to a mountain. Pushing through can also force change in the way we run or which can lead to pain or injury in other areas. Maybe the biggest cost to a mom with limited free time is losing the enjoyment of running itself. That peaceful time to clear your head is now a source of stress and self doubt.
However, stopping doesn't sound great either. While pushing through, though not ideal, at least left a glimmer of hope, stopping feels like an absolute way to lose fitness and have to start over towards your goal. Race goal aside, running is your YOU time. It helps you de stress and you can tell your more patient trying to get kids out the door on days you’ve had your run. You hate to think about not having that space. And truly, for many running injuries, especially if it’s just getting started and pretty mild, just stopping for two weeks isn’t the best way to go.
The good news, push through or stop aren’t your only choices. There is a third option. Pause.
Pain and injury aren't signs you’re broken, your goal was too big, or your mother in law is right and running is bad for your knees. They’re simply signals, your body’s way of saying, “hey, I need a minute here.” The truth of training, and especially training as a mom is that it’s not just blindly following a plan but allowing space for adjustments and letting our bodies adapt. Pausing to figure out what your body is telling you and adjust accordingly is key to staying consistent in your training.
Let me share Tessa's story. Tessa was training for her first marathon as a mom of 3 and elementary PE teacher. She literally went from early morning runs to chasing kids all day. She’d run one marathon pre kids and dealt with a lot of calf issues during training and the race itself. We knew we wanted to include strength and mobility work to address this during her build. 5 weeks into her training, Tessa had some mild pain along the inside of her right shin after a run. When Tessa brought this to me, we didn’t just shrug it off and we didn’t just take 2 weeks off, we paused. After talking this through, we identified she'd been running some of her easier runs a little harder than intended. She'd also gotten busy with the start of school, leaving less time for some of the targeted strength and mobility work. She was able to slow down on her easier runs and together we found creative ways to be more consistent with the strength and mobility program. With these adjustments, she was able to continue on with her training and not only run a pain free marathon but beat her pre kid time by over 20 minutes.
Tessa's breakthrough didn’t come from pushing through, it came from having support to make timely adjustments to her training in a way that kept her running consistently and still enjoying making progress towards her marathon goal. If you’re feeling a little stuck on what adjustments to make with your training, book a discovery session and let’s talk it through together.
Here are 3 questions to get you started and help you be more productive with your pause.
Have I added something new to my training recently?
Have I been taking care of recovery basics like sleep, nutrition, and stress management?
Do I have an idea of how to address this painful area so this doesn’t keep happening?
Running is so much more than just mindlessly checking boxes on a training plan, especially as a mom with so many other things going on outside of our runs. I get it with so much going on, it’s easy to want to put our running on autopilot but running healthy as a mom means staying tuned in with our body and being open to adjustments. We’ve got to give ourselves the grace to take that pause, let go of pre kid or pre injury training methods, and find something that works for you right now.
If you’re dealing with pain, uncertainty, or just want a way to train that feels and works better in this season of life, let’s talk it through. A discovery call is a simple 15 minute conversation where I’ll help you get clear on your next step. Click here to book a call.
Running Resilient isn’t just pushing through, it’s learning to adjust and adapt.
Katlyn
