Experiment in Running Through the Pain with Barefoot Techniques – Part 1 Evaluating the Pain

The body is very reliable about sending signals of discomfort.  Whether you call it anything from pain to tightness, the brain gets the message and pesters you with it.  I categorize these discomforts in ways that help me decide how to proceed with my activities.

• When did the feeling start?
• Was it directly or immediately associated with a certain action?
• Where does it fall on the sharp to achy scale?
• What particular movements exacerbate it?
• Is it felt constantly or intermittently?
• Under what conditions doe the intensity vary?
• Does anything (like motion, massage, stretching) bring relief? (excluding medicines for preliminary evaluation)

These are the things I thought through when I began feeling an uncomfortably tight twinge in the outer backside of my left knee.  This is the same knee that had the torn meniscus trimmed about nine years ago.  Every once in a while, it will feel swollen for about 10 minutes right after a run.  It never looks swollen (since healing from the arthroscopic surgery), and the sensation never occurs again until after another run.  It doesn’t seem to matter whether it is a short or long run for my current state of training.  However, it has been happening much less frequently over time.

This is not the same leg in which I injured the popliteal tendon three years ago from, when I increased my pace too drastically and without warm-up.  That, in comparison, was a sudden sharp pain that persisted, making every step a challenge.  For that injury, I took a break from running or biking for several weeks.

The most recent pang began a few hours after a run, but would come and go.  At first, I was responding based on the idea that not using it would let it rest and heal.  I did allow myself a swim.  I do not kick with much power, being more concerned with swimming distances and being able to ride the bike leg of a triathlon right after the swim.  I have also found that swimming inevitably helps my legs loosen up.  Other than that, I did a lot of sewing and writing.

Oddly enough, I found that the more I moved, the less the knee hurt.  If I sat at the desk or sewing table for a while, the knee would have more repetitive twangs once I stood up and walked, and even some while I was sitting.  But when my activities expanded to helping my engineer in the shop, which involved squatting and bending, the pain would disappear.  This made me remember a few things:

• it is recommended that a sprained ankle be used as normally as possible while it is healing
• in any exercise, there are moments of adjusting to avoid the wrong sort of stress on the body
• both my husband, an experienced runner, and some experienced Barefoot Runner Society friends have occasionally spoken of “running through” the pain.

For the rest of the second day after the original tenderness, I moved often.  I didn’t change positions or directions abruptly, but neither was I moving like the much maligned sloth.  I continued to have less and less trouble, so began looking forward to dancing that evening.  The dance floor, in my estimation, had the potential of being a controlled testing ground.  In spite of the fact that I have been compared to the energizer bunny due to how much enthusiasm I put into my dancing, I knew I could choose to dance mildly or wildly, assuming I didn’t completely succumb to the music….

•  I wouldn’t be committed to a certain time or distance
• A chair was always just a few feet away
• I could try out a variety of leg movements and speeds
• If it went well, it would easily compensate for the speed workout that I skipped earlier in the day

 

With the great rock-n-roll music played by our favorite local band, SwiTc Her, the test went on for about 2.5 hours, including at least 1.5 hours of actual dancing.  I was perspiring heavily, but it may have been partly due to the leather pants.  🙂  Only at the very end of that time did I notice the warning again.  I stopped dancing almost immediately, went home to take a hot bath, and slept soundly.

The next day, I felt as good as I had prior to the dancing.  It was already a scheduled rest day, so I took advantage of that, but made it a point to move often, especially using full range of motion for my knees.  The stage was set for the next level of testing, which I will expound upon in part 2 of my Experiment in Running Through the Pain with Barefoot Techniques – Strategies for the Run in a couple of days!