Returning from injury

[Deleted User]

This April I had to stop running due to a knee injury, prior to the stop I was training for the race for life having only started running in January. I had tried to come back to running a couple of times but with no sucess as my knee kept playing up. I gave up trying about a month ago after getting a referral to a physio.

However the race for life was yesterday, I decided to try to run it but to stop immediately that my knee hurt, it never did, the only thing that made me stop was my stitch and crowd congestion.

I still have not been to the physio as am still waiting for a referral letter. Am I wrong to go out and start running again? If not what do you recommend as I don't want to go out and push myself too hard, as that is what probably caused the injury in the first place!

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

drew

Jill, could be that the injury has healed itself due to the long layoff. Before you do start running again it is certainly worthwhile trying to find the cause of the knee pain. This may simply be down to having the wrong type of shoes.

Most specialist running shops have "gait analysis" facilities, which will determine what type of shoes you should be using.

Other than that, if you simply did too much too soon then you may be ok to continue but be prepared to stop at the first sign of trouble.

If it does happen again there are quite a few sports injury clinics around which will see you within days for a diagnosis. You could probably expect to pay about £20 - £30 for a session.