Are you listening?

In my Immucell giveaway (HERE), I asked you to share how you stay injury free on my facebook page. So far, I have only one, but it really made me think.

How many of us ignore the aches, pains, and troubles we have while training? guilty! I ignored that knee pain last October while pushing through the Hartford Half, and dealt with it all marathon training. My knee has been feeling better lately, but still paining me here and there.

At bootcamp Friday, we did a million TRX leg work including killer saw lunges

TRX saw lunges

My ass cheeks literally hurt so bad saturday and sunday that sitting on a toilet seat or hard chair was torture. I ignored the aches and pains, and went ahead with my schedule 8 mile run sunday. Which, by the way, was the first outdoor run and longest run since the marathon.

With my achy legs, my pace was slow, and my knee was painful. I needed to stop and stretch and walk a little to ease the pain. My legs felt like lead after, now my quads and hamstrings were feeling it too. 

This morning I was planning on a 6 mile treadmill run, but my legs are still killing me. So I took Pattie's advice and listened to my body. I still got my butt up, but I did the elliptical and took my time stretching afterwards. Today I had a coworker do some trigger point and massage, and I have a hot date with the foam roller tonight.

What else should I listen to my body for?

The foods I eat

The intensity of my workouts

The sleep I need

The stress I need to relieve

Do you listen to your body?

Weekend recap

Eating did not go as planned. Someone, aka Kevin convinced to split cannoli & tiramisu at a fabulous bakery saturday night. Probably not the best night before a long run fuel. Oh well, it was gooood, and I figured I burned it off during my run saturday. How many calories are in a canoli anyways?

Saturday after work, we went for a ride. A little chilly, but manageable. We got home just as the sun was starting to set. phew! Saturday morning, S and I went for our long run. 9 miles turned into 9.12 when S got confused about our turning point. My right knee has been achy all week. It hurts more in sitting, when my knee is flexed, and was killer at points during our run. I am self-diagnosing myself with runners knee aka movie goers knee, aka patellafemoral pain syndrome. When you have a doctorate vaguely remember things from physical therapy school you are allowed to do that haha. Now I need to dig out my ortho books from college, since as a neuro PT, I don't deal with this type of thing too often.

I am lucky to say I won a Gu sampler pack from Dorothy @ Mile posts. I have never tried Gu before, so this will be an interesting trial run for me. Not sure how I will feel about the consistency of it, but I will definitely give it a go.

Iced my knee a lot today, and have been doing some transverse friction massage to my quadriceps tendon. I'm hoping I'll be okay to get some speedwork in tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!