Pain is a Challenge

If you are a runner, you will experience pain. Some pain is minor, and is just part of the strength building process. Other pain is not normal, and is due to pushing yourself too fast or too hard, or bad running form. Many people give up running when they have pain. I say DON’T give up. Find out what the pain is from and correct it!

Ever since running my 1/2 marathon, I find I do my best running when in pain. That event brought back my knee pain (from the injury I had 6 weeks earlier). Whenever I feel that knee pain, I use the ChiRunning body sensing to try and figure out what I am doing wrong in my form, and correct it. What you do is you focus on the area that is in pain, and go through all the ChiRunning proper form elements to try and figure out what you are doing wrong….

• Am I landing midfoot (not on my heel!)?
• Are my feet landing parallel, not skewed to one side or the other
• Is my upper body relaxed?
• Am I lifting my feet up behind me with my hamstrings, not pushing off with my toes?
• Is my pelvis tilted properly
• Is my ankle aligned with my hips and shoulders?
• Is my posture straight and my core engaged? (no slouching allowed!)

I keep trying to adjust my form until the pain goes away. When the pain goes away, then I know I am doing it right! From this process, I realized that I was still landing a little bit on my heels with my foot in front of my body. When I started dropping my foot sooner (it almost feels like it is too soon!), then my knee pain went away, and my running felt easier. It’s almost as if the pain was a gift to help me correct my technique.

Update: Altering my running stride to make pain go away sometimes works. Other times it doesn’t work. Once recently I went out for a long run, then took a 15 minute rest, then went out to run 1 more mile with my daughter. The outside of my knee hurt so badly that I could not run at all. Altering my stride did nothing to help. I took a few days off running and was okay again. Also recently, the underside of both my knees have been hurting me near the end of my runs, and whenever I go down stairs. Altering my stride doesn’t help with this either. I’m not sure, but I think I may have the seat too far forward on my new bike, and that is actually the source of this newest knee pain. So, I’ve been fiddling with my bike seat position.

Update July 29, 2006: I have recently changed my mind about ChiRunning, and now follow the Pose Method of running. Click here to read why.

I still believe that Pain is a Challenge. As a runner, you need to listen to your body and wrack your brain to figure out what can be done to make the pain go away. It’s a difficult challenge, but since I love running…I will keep tri-ing!

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and have no medical qualifications. If you have pain from running, please seek the advice of a medical professional!