Injuries are commonplace with runners, especially professionals. However, injuries before a marathon can feel like a gut punch. This leads to two outcomes: trying to train more to compensate for your injury, which will inevitably lead to more injuries, or stopping completely and losing all your motivation and conditioning.
Running while injured is far from optimal, but there are situations when you can still complete your marathon despite being injured. But you have to do it the right way.
Let’s examine common injuries among runners to determine which are more dangerous than others and how to adjust your marathon training plan to deal with your unfortunate circumstance.
Common Running Injuries
There are many bones and muscles you can injure while running and many ways to do so. Let’s look at common running injuries suffered by athletes.
1. Runner’s Knee (aka Patellofemoral Syndrome)
This common overuse injury usually happens when your kneecap is out of alignment. Symptoms typically include pain around the kneecap, especially while going up or down stairs, squatting, or sitting with the knee bent for a long time.
Runner’s knee is considered a light injury. So you can run through the knee pain. However, you shouldn’t continue with your typical training routine. Take it easy or do cross-training instead to stay in shape.
2. Stress Fracture
Stress fractures are one of the common running injuries during race training. It is caused by increasing your mileage or effort too quickly. These tiny fractures typically appear in your shins and feet bones and cause pain and discomfort.
Stress fractures are a serious issue and should not be taken lightly. Contact your physician for proper diagnosis and treatment. Meanwhile, follow the RICE guidelines: rest, ice, compression, and elevation.
3. Shin Splints (aka Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome or MTSS)
If the front or inside of your lower leg along the tibia hurts, you might have shin splints. It can easily be confused with a stress fracture. However, the pain from shin splints is usually more spread along the bone, while a stress fracture is more localized.
Shin splints are slightly less severe than a stress fracture, but you will still need plenty of rest. Luckily, cross-training is not out of the question, so you are not entirely out of the game.
4. Achilles Tendinopathy (aka Tendinitis)
Tendinitis is a chronic degenerative change to the Achilles tendon. It causes pain, burning, and stiffness of the tendon, typically in the morning. The general cause of this injury is a swift increase in training volume before your body is ready.
Achilles tendinopathy is a rather severe condition, and you should stop all training, apply the previously mentioned RICE guidelines, and take over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs.
Contact your physician if the pain does not go away in a week.
5. Muscle Strain, Pull, or Tear
Putting too much pressure on your muscles can cause them to strain, pull, or even tear. You may feel a popping sensation when a muscle strains. Runners typically suffer from hamstring, quadriceps, calf, and groin strains.
There are different degrees of strains, and whether to continue training or not depends on the pain the injury causes you. Regardless of your training decision, you should follow the RICE guidelines for this injury.
6. Ankle Sprain
Accidentally twisting your foot may lead to an ankle sprain, meaning the ligaments around your ankle are overstretched or torn.
A sprained ankle is usually considered a minor injury, which you can train through. However, we recommend reducing training efforts to 50% or cross-training until you recover. You should also follow the RICE guidelines.
7. Plantar Fasciitis
The band of tissue in the bottom of your feet, called the plantar fascia, can get inflamed, leading to plantar fasciitis. This causes severe heel pain, especially in the morning. It is prevalent in people with tight calf muscles or high arches and can happen without obvious reasons, although it is frequently associated with increased activity.
This injury is considered light-to-medium severity. To treat plantar fasciitis, do calf stretches and wear good shoes at all times (including at home). Rest and ice at the bottom of the foot are also in order.
8. IT (Iliotibial) Band Syndrome
IT band syndrome causes pain on the outside of the knee due to the inflammation of the ligament that runs from your hip to the outside of your knee.
IT band syndrome is a relatively light injury that you can run through. We recommend reducing the amount of training you do to reduce further complications. It is advised to heat and stretch the ligament before exercise and ice it after.
9. Neuropathy (aka Nerve Damage)
Irritation or compression of a nerve can lead to nerve damage. It is expressed in various ways: burning, tingling, pins and needles, numbness, muscle spasms, and cramps. The usual suspects are nerves in your lower back, knees, ankles, feet, and toes.
Nerve damage from running is a medium-to-severe type of injury. You should definitely reduce your training and consult a physician if you suspect you have neuropathy.
How to Handle Last-Minute Aches Before a Marathon
We all know the feeling—you put in the hard work training for an important marathon, and suddenly, you get injured. Nobody wants you to run injured, so here are a few recommendations to recover before your race.
First, consult a sports physician, an orthopedic doctor, or a physician, who knows about runners’ problems. You should develop a treatment plan that will determine whether you can run or at least cross-train while recovering.
If consulting a medical expert is impossible for some reason, there are some things you can do on your own. If you get hurt during training, immediately stop running. Apply ice and heat to the injury for 20 minutes 3 times a day.
If you feel better after a few rest days, do a very easy run. Resume your training at 50% if the pain does not get worse. However, if you start feeling worse, stop running for at least a week and reevaluate. You can continue cross-training with elliptical, cycling, aqua jogging, or swimming.
Can You Run a Marathon Through Pain or Injury?
First, we recommend you abstain from running long-distance races while injured. That being said, we know how passionate runners are about marathons. So, if you absolutely cannot help it, we have prepared a few guidelines to help you decide whether to postpone your marathon participation.
The consensus among doctors and runners is that you should try to rate your pain. If it is 4 out of 10 or higher, you should abstain from running a marathon.
While a 4 might sound low, a marathon is highly likely to aggravate the injury. It is better to postpone the race than risk the injury spiraling into something more serious.
If you are uncomfortable with the pain scale, here are some injuries you can run through:
- runner’s knee
- muscle strain (Grade I)
- ankle sprain
- plantar fasciitis
- IT band syndrome, or neuropathy
You definitely should not run with Grade II and III muscle strains, a stress fracture, tendonitis, or shin splints.
But what should you do if you get injured during a marathon? Is it normal to feel pain during a marathon? Unfortunately, pain is something almost all runners have to deal with.
If you feel mid-to-severe pain, especially in your thighs, calves, and hamstrings, it might not be an injury. It may just be part of the challenge of running a marathon. Nevertheless, if the pain feels like a definite injury, follow our previously outlined guidelines—it is better to be safe than sorry.
Conclusion
Injuries while preparing for a marathon can devastate a runner’s spirit. We hope we managed to give you some insight to help you make an informed decision on whether to run the marathon while injured. However, we want to stress this again: if you can, consult a physician for your injury, It’s better than risking aggravating it.
