Being injured is no good.

I have only run once so far in March. My last Saturday run of February I ran 34 km, much of which was uphill. The nest day I did a 12 km run where I really start to feel pain. The next day I woke up and I was limping. Shooting pain up the front of my left leg. Every time I walk up the stairs I can barely put pressure on my left leg. People have even commented to me how it looks like I am limping when I walk.

It took me a few days to figure out what was wrong with my leg (all the while I've been icing it while I'm at home). At first I thought it was the iliotibial band bothering me, but I've had that before and there was no pain above my knee, in fact the only time it feels like my knee is in pain is when I step.

So I think this is the problem.



This is the muscle that you use when you push off with your feet while running. After doing some research it would seem the list of possible ways to over exert this muscle includes:
-running too many hills (definitely did that)
-increasing weeky mileage too fast (possibly, I went from 150 km in December to 200 km in February to 275 km in February)
-pronating (I am a pronator)
-the more a pronator runs the more they are likely to get bothered by this as the pronating causes an extra usage of this muscle.
-not wearing motion control shoes (I was wearing older worn out shoes that I shouldn't have because they were more comfortable for shorter runs, rather than sucking it up and wearing shoes that are more comfortable on long runs).

In 16 days I'm running in the Campus to Campus Half Marathon. I hope my leg feels better by then.

I finally fixed my bike, took it for a spin around the block to make sure everything was working fine and it was. Even better was the fact that the lower impact exercise didn't bother my leg. So I think I will be safe to bike a little bit to keep my fitness level while my leg gets better.

Lesson learned: don't be a dumbass and wear the right shoes.

"No one ever drowned in sweat" - anonymous.

Keep on running... or biking.

Nazzer.