Run Parkie Run

So, as promised, here’s a slightly depressing (but hopefully interesting) post about knee injuries and what they can do to your running. ‘I’m sure most runners will have encountered some sort of knee pain – and the majority of us just ignore it. This works sometimes – the pain might just disappear – but there’s also a chance that it won’t get better and actually gets worse.

The problem is that running places a huge amount of force through the knee joint with each step. The repetitive movement and constant impact (often on hard surfaces) wears away at the knee until eventually the runner starts to feel pain. If you “push through” this kind of pain then it will get more serious and eventually develop into something that’s difficult to cure.

I had a relatively minor knee injury a few years ago due to running. Knowing how serious these kind of problems can get I backed off straight away and didn’t do anymore. Even so, the damage had been done and I had to have a plica removal arthroscopy the next year. After that, scar tissue formed below the knee and I was out of action for another year and a half! All from a minor injury that I thought would heal in a couple of weeks.

I hope this post hasn’t scared anyone, that wasn’t my intention. It’s just to show that you need to respect your body and joints. If something hurts DURING the run then you need to stop! Muscle aches and pains afterwards are OK (to a certain extent), but you need to listen closely to your body and what it’s trying to tell you.