How bad are your slight pains?

Hey, I am in the middle of a marathon programme and am having a constant nagging feeling that I am about to get a serious injury. This is because I am always in a little bit of pain (different parts, can be the knee, shins, bottom of my heel etc.) but not enough to stop me from running and certainly far from what I have been able to read on blogs etc about common injuries, but they are still there if you know what I mean. I am wondering if anyone else has the same feeling which (in case there are many) would probably mean it's perfectly normal to be in a bit of pain (if not I guess I need to take a break...)

I would say you're getting close to that injury.

Solution would be to take at least four days off. Or alternate training on a bike for a while.

Thanks, I was hoping to hear it is normal with a bit of pain but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry. I'll get on that bike tomorrow I think!

I've just got over achilles pain that was stopping me running (in the middle of my marathon programme) and it turned out it wasn't an injury, but just pain caused by tight muscles elsewhere (probably wouldn't have turned into an injury if I hadn't stopped running and got it sorted though). What I've realised is that I needed to stretch loads more than I was because I was running so much more. So if you haven't been doing more post-run stretching than usual that might be worth a try too (and ALL the muscles involved in running, not just the ones that hurt).

Agree with literatin on this one! I think when training for events it's easy to forget that it's not "normal" to be in pain. I know that I spent most of the 3 months leading up to my marathon with sore feet from blisters, sore muscles from hard training sessions and didn't think much about it.

I didn't get injured during the marathon, but strained my calf and hip flexor pretty soon afterwards. I think that these injuries were the result of the cumulative damage that I did to those muscles and tendons during marathon training (and because I didn't stretch properly, didn't rest when I had niggles etc).

A bit of rest will help, and getting on the bike or x-trainer is a good idea.  Could you book in for a sports massage or physio session for a general check up? They could let you know which muscles are tightening and what you need to do to avoid injury there.

Good luck

Agree about the physio. I had knee pain and wasnt sure what to do.

Physio cracked my knee, moved it about a bit, massaged the tendon that she said i had strained and said dont run for a week.

A week later I ran and bingo it was great.

Ok, so took last week off completely and now I feel great, all the small aches are gone. I reckon the old body just needed some rest. Interestingly, when the biggest pain (which was in my knee) had died down, I noticed other things were also painful. I also noticed I needed a full week to get everything back to normal, I wonder why the training plan does not include any longer periods of rest? Maybe they are designed for people below 30! Half marathon this week end so hopefully I can go full out there now!