I am training for a marathon in July and I am nervous. I did a half on the weekend (part of a Half Ironman) and my hamstrings are still very sore. I have done two light runs since and a yoga class. Will the pain go if I just keep running? Should I have a day off? How soon should I attempt a longer run? The half is the longest run I have done so far. I did the half in just under two hours so not going for speed here. I am very motivated and I love running but I am nervous.
If the pain is just below your buttock, or spreads along the back of your upper leg, it might be that you've pulled the gluteus or the flexors. When it happened to me I rested up for about a week, after which I had a marathon. I was very careful to warm up and stretch properly, and luckily the marathon was fine and I've no problems at all since!
It's frustrating to sit injuries out, but my take on it is that it's better to be out of action for a week - or a month, or more - than drag an injury out far longer than it should last and performing poorly in that period anyway.
I am assuming that you are more of a biker, have you done any training for running prior to the 70.3? If so I assume that you included some brick training. If you didn't or you did not have enough training running the pain in your hams could have been a result of the biking. Biking and running are opposites, biking is more quads and running is more hams. If the majority of your training is biking then your quads are going to be stronger and give your hams more resistance, and your hams are going to be inherently weaker. I would not be very worried about a marathon giving your time at a 70.3. But I would make sure that you give your legs enough time to heal and you should take a recovery day, especially after a race, and kick up your weekly milage slowly so that you have a good number of long runs further then 13 miles. I would also remember to stretch out those quads through out the day when you run, and some weights for your hams to strengthen them up. A large portion of injuries are the result of asymmetry, where one muscle is not strong enough to play with its opposer.
thanks for the comments, I really appreciate it - I should add that i didn't actually do the whole of the half ironman - just the run leg. But I did find out what part of the problem was - not the right shoes. I'd recently spent $260 on very good shoes but they weren't the right ones for me. Luckily the shop (Sports Fever) who fitted me were suitable embarrassed and did a swap with the right ones (both were Brooks), so all is well. I have just found this site and am finding so much fantastic info, so thanks to all of you who post comments everywhere, it is just so helpful and encouraging!
MapMyRun.com,
MapMyRide.com,
MapMyWalk.com,
MapMyHike.com,
MapMyFitness.com,
&
MapMyTri.com
