How to deal with a chronic running injury: When an injury doesn't resolve quickly, it's time to adjust your mindset around recovery

Not all running injuries are created equal, and some take what feels like forever to heal. Other injuries seem to return over and over again, no matter what you do to get rid of them. Dealing with a chronic running injury can be exhausting and frustrating, so follow this advice to help you get through the worst of it.

Change your perspective

Your mindset can have a surprising impact on your body’s ability to recover quickly. It’s OK to be sad, frustrated or angry, and it’s even fine if you need to sit down and have a good cry once in a while, but dwelling too long on those feelings will only hold you back.

One way to help keep your mindset trending toward the positive is to change your perspective from “I’m not running” to “I’m healing.” It sounds small, but it shifts your focus from something negative to something positive and productive.

This simple change will help you stick to your rehab plan, cross-training regime and whatever else you’re doing to kick this injury to the curb so you can get back to doing what you love sooner.

Shop around

For practitioners, that is. No single physiotherapist, chiropractor or osteopath is going to have all the answers, and just because one practitioner did a great job helping you with the knee pain you struggled with a couple of years ago doesn’t mean that same person will know exactly how to help you now. Don’t feel bad ditching your usual therapist for someone else if what they’re doing isn’t working for you, and don’t be afraid to keep switching until someone is able to help.

Eat well

A healthy diet can go a long way in helping your body to heal, so make sure you’re getting a wide variety of vitamins and minerals in your diet to support your progress. You also need to ensure that you’re eating enough food to fuel your recovery. Some runners have a tendency to cut back on calories when they’re not running, but this can actually make it harder for your body to repair itself, so eat well, and eat enough to support the healing process.

Do what you can do

You may not be able to run right now, but take this time to dive into whatever activity you can do. Have you been cleared to swim? Pool run? Bike? Walk? Whatever it is, commit yourself to it, and try not to compare it to running. It’s true that very few activities can actually replace running, and if all you do is think about how you’d rather be out on a run, you won’t enjoy the activity for what it is.

Focus on your other hobbies

Hopefully, you have other activities that you enjoy aside from running, and now’s the time to focus on them, rather than focusing on the one activity you can’t do. Do you enjoy painting? Playing an instrument? Reading? Spend a little extra time doing those activities to keep your mind off running, and if you don’t have a lot of other hobbies, now’s the perfect time to try something new.

Track your activities

If you’re someone who enjoys recording their runs on Strava or some other activity-tracking app, use these tools to track your cross-training activities, too. Getting regular updates on your progress will keep you motivated to do your daily stretching and rehab exercises, and give you daily goals to strive for, which can help fill the void left by running.

Know your limits

If standing on the sidelines of a race to cheer on your running buddies makes you happy and helps you feel connected to your running community, then by all means, do it. But if seeing others out running when you can’t makes you feel worse, then don’t feel bad declining the invitation to be a part of the cheer squad. If you need to, temporarily hide the “running inspo” accounts you usually follow on Instagram and avoid things that make you feel sad. You can always come back to them later.

posted Thursday December 16th
by Brittany Hambleton