A Small Gear Change Solved Big Running Pain

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Welcome back to The Wrinkled Runner.
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Today starts the first episode for season 11.
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And I'm going to talk about how sometimes gear might be the reason that you are having issues or pain that uh could be leading to injury.
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And this is totally anecdotal, but this is my story of how I actually got back to be able to run a marathon after getting hit by a car and after discovering that my running belt was the cause of a lot of pain that I was having while running.
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Now I want to say up front that I do not advocate running through injury and that this was not an injury that I was experiencing.
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This was pain in my glute, pain in my uh groin.
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That would happen once I got to, it depended, but like four or five miles into a run, and then it was getting so bad that I was able, I was not able to run any more than that.
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And then I had to defer my buffalo marathon to this May.
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So I've always had some glute pain more niggly than actual flat out pain for some years, and it just got worse after I was hit by a car.
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And I actually did run a marathon after I was hit by a car.
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But then when about a year went by and I decided to run the Buffalo Marathon, and when I started to up my mileage a bit in order to start training, it was getting just worse and worse.
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And from a coaching perspective, I knew the things to do to, you know, strengthen and stretch these areas that were giving me problems, but nothing was working.
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It was it would just get worse.
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And you know, I would go six weeks of this strength training, things weren't getting better.
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It actually made runs feel worse.
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And so I was getting really desperate actually to uh do something about this because I wasn't able to get over a certain mileage, and there were times when I would just have to totally quit running.
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And I treated this pain as a warning sign that I was going to get injured in some catastrophic way.
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I didn't know if I was gonna rip a glute muscle, like I didn't know what was gonna happen, but it just got to the point where I really couldn't do any speed work.
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I could do some easy runs about four miles, sometimes five, if I had kept it up, kept up the consistency a bit.
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But there was no way I was running even a half marathon, much less a marathon.
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I actually decided I was going to see a PT person here in the Buffalo area that deals with runners and has like this assessment that they do to try and fit pinpoint and figure out, you know, things that are going on and what to do to get it better.
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Now, because I've been through PT, because I am a personal trainer and because I run assessments on clients and you know tell them to do the different things they're supposed to do, depending on different factors and different assessments.
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I already kind of knew the things I was supposed to be doing and I was doing them, but I did finally decide, okay, I'm gonna get some fresh eyes on this and see if that does make a difference.
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I just told my husband that I was going to call this PT clinic, and that same week we had a three-mile run scheduled in the morning.
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So we get up super dumb early, like 5:30 in the morning to go run.
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And I hadn't charged my phone the night before.
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So I always take my phone.
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I always strap on my running belt and take my phone with me.
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I am not one, you know, that believes you shouldn't take a phone.
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You're not a real runner if you take your phone with you.
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I mean, some of the stuff is just ridiculous.
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But uh and from having a car accident where they did have to contact my husband, I don't run without having a phone.
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But in this particular morning, I was running with my husband.
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It was 5 30 in the morning.
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I figured I was gonna be back within, you know, 30 to 40 minutes.
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Who's gonna call me at 5:30 in the morning?
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If somebody did, it was it would probably be an emergency.
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But, you know, hopefully the chances of that were slim.
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So I thought I'm going to charge my phone here.
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It was a newer phone, so it charged really fast, and I knew I would need it pretty quick after we got back from the run.
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So I just left it and I left my running belt and just ran free, quote unquote.
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So while we were running, it occurred to me that I wasn't feeling the same kind of like little pulls and little introduction to the pain that I knew would come after, you know, four miles.
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I just I felt really good.
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Maybe the act of thinking I'm gonna call this PT person is like having this of this weird effect on my body and everything's fine, like whatever.
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So once we got back, going to go to my son's house to run with him.
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And a lot of times what I would do is when I was healthy and was able to run, I could run with my husband, run to my son's house, which is three miles away, run with my son, and then run home and accumulate 12, 13, 14 miles and be fine.
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In in this case, because I was having so much trouble, a lot of times I would just walk to my son's house.
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So I strap on the running belt, put my phone in, and I start walking to my son's house.
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Now, the way I wear my phone when I had it in the belt, it was along my back.
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And I had just gotten a new phone, like I said, and this was a bigger version of what I had had previously.
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I usually go like four or five years before I get a new phone.
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So uh it was significantly bigger than the one I had carried before.
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So I'm starting to walk over to my son's house, and all of a sudden, you know, I start getting pain down my groin.
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I'm feeling it in my hip and in my uh piriformis or butt, you know, area.
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Because I hadn't felt it in the morning run.
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I'm like, I'm just gonna take my belt off and, you know, see if that relieves it a belt a bit.
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So I pop the belt off and immediately I just kind of felt this weird rush of relief.
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I kept walking, like it still hurt, but it just there was just this light bulb moment of I wonder if it's the way my running belt is holding my phone against my, you know, my lower back and into my uh butt that is causing issues.
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And I I mean it just was nothing that I ever would have thought of.
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When I got to my son's house, I left the belt there, ran with him.
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It felt pretty darn good.
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And I actually have not run with a running belt since.
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I just completed a marathon.
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I was able to train through that, not have any issues.
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And actually, the soreness in during the marathon had nothing to do with my glute or my groin.
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And the few days of DOMS afterwards were my outer quads.
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Like, I mean, it just totally fixed the issue where I am not feeling it as a pain.
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Like sometimes if you know, when I would go longer distances, I know my glute was there, but it wasn't any kind of debilitating, I have to stop this run.
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It just was crazy to me that usually you have to do all of this PT and the and the muscle building and and all this stuff, when in actuality it was because of a gear issue in my case.
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Obviously, I'm not saying if you're having issues with something, it's something you're wearing as opposed to a muscular issue.
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But what I am saying is when you go to a PT or a doctor or somebody, if you are having pain, make sure that they know everything about your runs, including what you're wearing, because I feel like I could have had all the PT in the world, and had I not discovered this, and obviously they wouldn't have known that I ran with a running belt, unless I asked outright proper question, I'd be running five or six miles, maybe, and would never be running a marathon again.
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Definitely when you are having pain and you need to go see somebody, which I totally think you should do, make sure that you tell them everything that you are running with and that you are doing.
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Now, if you have pain like this and you find out that, oh my gosh, I've been wearing a running belt, let me just tell you some of the things that I had to replace a running belt with, especially in the summer.
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Now, during the winter time, I can throw my phone into my coat jacket pocket and not have to worry about it.
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I also uh enabled cellular on my uh Apple Watch.
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And so I can use that as a phone and be able to text people while on the run and not have to take my phone.
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And I made sure all my music was on it and all that kind of stuff.
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So that is also something I do.
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I can uh sometimes I'll take the straps off of the Apple Watch and just pop that into a pocket because I use a Garmin for my running recording, but then I can also use the uh Apple Watch and just have that in a pocket as well.
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The other thing I do is when I'm buying new jackets or you know, pants or whatever, I look for zippered pockets.
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They, for some reason, when they make these pockets in some of this running stuff, they're either super short or they're placed in ways that something's gonna fly right out of your pocket once you start running.
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So I always make sure that there's zippers.
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I also carry a hydration vest.
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I used to always carry a running belt andor a hydration belt that I could carry my uh water bottles on.
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Now I use a hydration vest that has all the pockets and stuff so that I can carry things up above.
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Now, one thing that I found is when I do that, if you carry a lot of water in your back, it'll kind of slide down with the bladder, the water bladder.
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So I've taken pins and I pin it further forward so that the water doesn't like pull pull back because that can also be very uncomfortable and uh make your shoulder blades hurt as well.
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So, what I want to also say then is that sometimes something that works for a lot of other people isn't going to work for you.
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Just like super shoes, there are people that super shoes do not work for, you know, they're more narrow, uh, the stability of running and you know, it changes their gait too much.
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So super shoes aren't ideal for them in that same way.
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There may be some gear that a lot of people use that you just throw on that you're not even realizing is altering something in you or pushing on something or doing something to your body that is throwing you off and could be causing some of this pain.
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So if you're experiencing persistent pain and you're starting to think that this is going to turn into an injury, you need to see a PT, especially one that is associated with running.
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I will always, always, always tell you to see someone, a PT that either is a runner themselves, specializes in running, because they're going to look at things a little bit differently than they're going to look at somebody else and in their recommendations and things.
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So always let them know the different things that are just normal and basic for you.
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If you carry water bottles with you all the time, if you you know hold your phone in your hand all the time, if you carry your water in a vest, if you wear a running belt, all of those things, make sure that the doctor or the PT know that so that they can be better informed into how to help you.
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Everything is evidence.
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When you are trying something new, be aware of how that might influence your body.
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Even if it's like a week out, think about what did I do a week ago?
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Did I introduce something new?
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Did I start wearing this?
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Did I start carrying a phone that is three ounces heavier than my last one?
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All the different things that could be contributing, especially those of us who are older.
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I mean, you know, you'll be walking all of a sudden your your toe starts hurting you for some reason, and you have no idea why.
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It's just this weird thing.
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But just make sure that you know the things that you're introducing to your body, to your running that could be contributing to anything that might be uh feeling a little off in your body.
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So, key takeaways if you feel pain like I was feeling, quit the run, assess what's going on, see a professional to try to get you back onto the roads as well as you can and look at your gear and see is this something that could be contributing to me not being able to run.