After three years of running, I’ve ran a lot of miles, those miles equate to damage, which equates to a running injury which means no running. It’s only now I’ve realised how important looking after my body is, especially as a runner. If you’re new to running or if you’re a regular runner, PLEASE, PLEASE listen to my advice, I HATE being injured and if you do this, you’ll more than likely keep running. Injury feels like you’re in jail, not being able to run, not able to exercise, all you can do is rest. Let’s avoid injury together!

Listen To Your Body

If you’ve just come back from a run and you start to feel a niggle and the pain gets worse, DON’T run the next day. As much as you want to run, REST it and use the RICE method, rest, ice, compression, and elevation. This will allow the injury to heal, meaning you’ll be back out running much quicker. Believe me I’ve made this mistake, I had an Achilles injury and carried on running with it, I made it 10 times worse and ended up limping on it.

Don’t Run Every Day

Believe it or not, running everyday is no good for you. All you’re doing is making you more injury prone, allow yourself rest days in-between your runs to heal and strengthen your muscles. I’ve never really run everyday but I have suffered from Plantar Fasciitis before from running too many miles. If you’re suffering from this, I really recommend using Enertor’s running insoles, click here to buy them, they’ve really helped me. Also, make sure your wearing decent socks, I use STANCE socks this will mimise the risk of an Achilles injury. A quick Google of the best running socks should find you the best ones to wear.

Intensity

How intense is your running or gym work? Consider how intense you’re training, as the more intense it is, the more at risk you are to injury. I recommend having just two intense runs or training sessions a week, I usually do a tempo mid-week treadmill run and a long run, run your other runs at an easy, base pace. One injury I had was in my Piriformis, I’ve suffered this in both thighs due to over exercising. Every time you exercise, think, is this giving me any benefit or is this too much?