There’s no other way to say this, but yesterday I sustained my first injury. There, I’ve said it. I think I’ve pulled a ham string in my right leg. Not badly, I think, but having never had this happen before, only the next few days will tell.
I went out for my usual 5.5k run around the Common which takes me 30 minutes. I was just 20 minutes in I felt a bit of a pain shooting down the back of my leg, most noticeable in the back of my knee. I stopped immediately, walked a bit, tried running again, stopped immediately as the pain was still there, and then resigned myself to walk all the way back home. At no time was I in any real pain, but I can now feel a tightness in the back of my knee when walking, so I’ve been taking it easy since.
How could this have happened? Hadn’t I been taking it very carefully and slowly? What was different today? Trying to work out what happened I began to realise that today a lot of things were different.
Firstly I’d gotten a blister a few runs previously on my right foot at the end of my 3rd and 4th metatarsals. So rather than waiting for it to heal, I’d continued running, but actively tried to shift my landing more to the ends of my 1st – 3rd metatarsals. Which seemed to work at the time.
Secondly I’d left my bike at the tube station on Friday. When I went to retrieve it yesterday morning I found that someone had nicked the saddle. So I had to ride it home standing up. This would probably have been fine if I’d not set out to collect it in barefoot sandals. Thus all my weight was on my calves, achilles tendons and hamstrings whilst standing up riding it home. It felt fine at the time, if a little uncomfortable on my soles.
Thirdly I’d walking to collect it in the said barefoot sandals, which is more continuous walking barefoot than I’d usually do any day in one go. It was about a mile.
So I now realise that before setting out on my run, I’d already exercised all this musculoskeletal setup in my lower legs. Thus, when I started my run, it was as if I’d already done some barefoot running that day. 20 minutes of running on top of that, pushed my under-developed legs a little too far.
I’m a bit gutted, but hopefully this will get better in the next few days or weeks and I can get back to where I got to in a short time. The most important thing that I did do was stop immediately. Listening to your body is very important, it doesn’t tend to lie. I hope it was the things I’ve identified above and rather than doing any real damage I’ve just had a warning from body to take it easy.
Only the plus side, my arches and feet in general were really starting to get used to the running and the general aching from them had subsided so much I’d almost forgotten about it.