After a marathon I always try to do a full injury check run within 48h. This timing allows you to distinguish between muscle pain and real injuries. While I normally try to do it the day after - right away, that turned out to be pretty hard yesterday (left ankle caused some pain), so yesterday I settled for a 1km run with my daughter.
This morning my ankle felt better, some muscle pains started to appear - but not too bad. Time to hit the roads!
Why & How:
I knew my hamstring was suspect before the race. Late in a trainingscamp you just have to deal with it. After a trainingscamp you can address it - but you need to know where you stand before you can take a targetted action. Would the injury be substancial I would have to take (longer) rest, if the injury is small - strenght training can help me improve.
My injury check run works like this:
- 5 to max 10 km
- start slow - gradually (take 1 - 2 km for this) pick up the pace until you either feel pain or you lose your breath.
- slow down and do a bodyscan
- finish the run at a pace that causes no issues.
By doing this before your regular muscle pain kicks in you can quickly determine where your are injury wise.
The run:
The run went pretty smooth, the blisters on my left foot were definitly there but that was oke I was mostly interested in the ankle, calf and hamstring. Ankle seemed to be completely relaxed.
Calf and Hamstring felt slightly better compared to yesterday. Even when picking up some speed I would not describe it as pain - more a little tensed. Furthermore no imbalances between left and right (as you can get when one side is suboptimal).
So I am really happy with these results and will build a plan for next camp to incorporate more strenght work in the program.
Now time for some rest and recovery!
Happy running
