I have to say that I have been quite lucky to avoid any serious stuff happening to me. Shin splints, inflexible hip flexors, swollen ankles, blisters (classified as injuries in my book if you can’t fit your foot into a closed shoe) and missing toenails are just a few of the minor injuries that I have encountered during my very short running carrier. The worse injury by far for me was a stress fracture of tibia (shinbone) and that was entirely my doing because I was just too stubborn to stop and give up walking the 100k from London to Brighton. So I finished it….and was not able to walk for two weeks without crutches or point the toes on my right foot. Not to mention no training for two months afterwards. There is still scar tissue along the bone (you can feel little bumps if you stroke it) and is generally much more susceptible to further injuries (e.g. the aforementioned swollen ankle – doubled in size, spilling from my walking shoes…ehm…during yet another 100k walk).

It is hard to give up if you spend weeks training but ignoring niggles is not wise; the pain is not worth it. And replaying the whole London to Brighton experience, I often tell myself I should have stopped when the pain was just starting to become unbearable. Of course, knowing myself, were I in the same situation, I would probably kept going anyway….so this post is really for me.

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