Injuries galore

After blogging about my respective injuries, I consulted The Book to see what other types of injuries are discussed.

I quickly realized that my injuries aren't all that damaging in comparison to what could happen to a runner. Now, I didn't exactly ever feel like my injuries were severe but they still cause me a bit of discomfort and pain.

Here are some other injuries that can cause more pain.

Achilles tendinitis, ankle sprains, back pain (sciatica), ball of foot pain, cramps, hell bruises and spurs, hip (piriformis), iliotibial (IT) band syndrome, runner's knee, runner's nipple, plantar fasciitis, shin splints, delayed onset muscle soreness, muscle strains, stress fractures, the stitch, blisters, damaged nails, Athlete's foot, calluses.

That sort of runs the entire gamut right there (on a quick aside, if you want any more info on what The Book says on any of the above injuries, feel free to drop me a note and I'll gladly give you the lodown).

I'll give you the info it says about the IT band since my brother Danny started to come down with some pain there a while back.

According to The Book...

The IT band is a tissue that goes from the outside portion of the hip over the thigh and crosses over the knee and into the tibia. Pain is felt outside the knee and up to the hip. Pain may stop as soon as the running stops.

Some of the causes include downhill running, improper shoes, over- or under-pronation, inadequate warm-up or cool-down, a sudden and excessive increase in mileage, one single excessive workout, inflexibility, hills.

How can you treat it? Stretch the IT band, perform exercises to help strengthen the hip, ice down after a run, anti-inflammatories, decrease mileage, run on soft surfaces, run on level surfaces, reduce intensity, outright rest.

It's actually a kind of scary injury. Danny would tell me that he would feel the pain coming on at nearly the same mileage point during every run, and he would go from running normally without pain to experiencing a jolt of crippling pain in a matter of steps. I think Danny's problem was the sudden increase in mileage but there may have been other factors.

Anyway, you can never totally avoid injury so it's just one of the pitfalls of running, one of the few negative effects. It actually is a part of it, something that just comes with the territory. After all, I never suffered from bloody nipples or black toenails when I weighed 300 pounds.