Accelerating Recovery from a Sports Injury: Case Study – The Runner

Alice is a 30 year old woman who has been running casually on and off since college. Six months ago, after having her second child, she decided she would like to train more consistently in preparation for a half marathon she’s always wanted to do. Between working full time, the toddler, and the baby, running provides her precious time to herself. She is by no means out of shape, but misses the body she had before having children. Getting more serious about training and having a goal gives her motivation and helps push aside the guilt she feels when she heads out for a run.

Alice finds a program on the internet and follows it. She gradually builds up mileage and incorporates progressively more difficult workouts two to three times per week. She follows a core strengthening routine from YouTube and foam rolls diligently. She is five months in and has just increased her mileage from 30 to 35 miles per week. She notices a pain in the front of her right knee when she runs. She initially ignored it, but now after two weeks of pushing through the pain is making running difficult, and is even noticeable with normal tasks at work and home. Her race is in six weeks, and she is feeling discouraged. After all this  hard work will she be even able to do it?

After a full assessment, we help Alice understand what  she is able to control to get the best outcome.

She does not have the best healing engine. Having a  baby sometimes means she only gets four hours of sleep. Young children and full time works means stress. She does eat well, however, and makes  good choices at the grocery store and meal preps to ensure she has access to consistent, high-quality nutrition. We discuss that although she had originally budgeted her calories to lose weight, she now needs to eat more to optimize recovery.

The biggest change is in the steering wheel.

She takes the weekend off from training. The following week, she trains at 15 miles per week, or half her original volume. Her knee bothers her while running of course, but by the end of the week she realizes she never notices it when she’s doing anything besides running. We help her make a plan to build back up to running 30 miles per week before her race, tapers the final week, and runs her race. It was not the final build up she was hoping for, nor the finishing time she anticipated, but she is healthy again and still managed to run her race. Compared to the alternative, this is a major success.