Fit Fare

My name is Patricia and I’m a runner.

I remember the day I first typed that in a message to a friend of mine. I’d just gotten up early and gone for a run and I was sitting at my desk at work and realized I STILL had the runner’s high, over 2 hours later. Yes, I’m a runner. The morning of this writing, I got up at 6am to run 3 miles before work. Soon, I hope to run my longest distance yet: 13.1 miles. That’s a half marathon.

So how can you get started running? Should you get started running?
Logically, the easiest way to get started running is to… well… run. For most people though, it just isn’t that simple. Running is hard on your body. There’s no doubt about that. Your legs take a pounding, particularly your knees and feet. If you’re overweight, your body takes even more of a pounding. One of the most popular programs out there for the beginning runner is called the ‘Couch to 5K‘ program. This program starts you out with a very short amount of running, no more than 60 seconds at a time (alternating with walking) for the first week and progresses over a nine week period.

You’ll gradually progress to longer running intervals and shorter walking intervals. You run no more than 3 days per week, to ensure that your body has adequate rest between runs. Even with this gentle of a program, you may still need to repeat a week here and there. Don’t feel like you’re failing if you can’t progress on the same pace as the program. Take it at your own pace.

Running is, after all, a workout, so don’t be surprised if you end up with some muscle soreness. However some soreness is good and some is bad. Good soreness will strike you when you’ve been sitting for a while. It might hit your ankles, calves, thighs, or even your butt. Once you get up and start moving though, it should definitely lessen and it should go away completely in two days. Bad soreness is when your shins hurt with every step, your knees hurt every time you bend them, you can’t climb stairs, or your hips feel like they are on fire. Over the nearly two years I’ve been running, I’ve dealt with all of these types of soreness.  While I’m not a doctor, and you shouldn’t take my advice in lieu of one, here are some tips to deal with some of the bad types of soreness.

Knee pain: If your knees are swelling and are painful, ice them after a run. Bags of frozen peas or corn work well for beginning runners. You don’t want to freeze them, just cool them down and reduce the inflammation. Sitting for 10 minutes with the frozen veggies on your knees after a run is enough. Though once you remove the bags of veggies, don’t get up right away. Let your knees warm back up just a bit so you don’t end up doing more damage. Take a couple of extra days off from running, try to strengthen your quad muscles (the big muscles on the front of your thighs) and see what happens in a few days.

Shin Splints:  This is very possibly the most common injury for new runners. Shin splints feel a lot like tugging or twinging along the front of your lower legs. Ice is the remedy of choice for this one too. In addition, make sure you stretch well after your run and do some calf raises on your off days to strengthen the calf muscles. Shin splints for a day or two are not much cause for concern. Shin splints for a week are. If your shins are hurting every day, even the days you don’t run, go to a doctor right away.

Hip Pain:  The IT band runs along the outside of your legs from your knees all the way up to your hip. This is another common injury point for runners. A foam roller is a great tool to help loosen the IT band, massage it, and get the blood flow going to that area. You can strengthen the muscles that control balance to help alleviate injuries to this area. The easiest exercise for this is to stand on one leg for one minute. Then switch legs. Do this twice a day and you’ll notice the difference in a week.
Next time, we’ll talk about the proper equipment you need for running (yes, there is some), and tips and tricks for progressing past the Couch to 5K program.