Originally Published in December, 2017
After my last training cycle this past winter I really learned a lot about my body and what it can handle. Our bodies are capable of handling more than we give it credit for, but this is not to say that we should ignore red flags; we need to pay attention to our bodies and when something doesn’t feel right it is probably because something isn’t. In the past, I have ignored red flags and have had to endure much more than was ever necessary.
At the time, I was training to run a marathon and was experiencing a lot of discomfort throughout my body. I knew that something had to be wrong. However, as I was training for this marathon I ignored these red flags because I was focused on getting to that marathon and finishing it. This was my mistake. My knees and my ankles were killing me, and eventually this pain found its way up into my back. I was able to finish my marathon, but afterward I felt my entire body crumble. I had ignored these symptoms for too long, and now I was feeling the result.
The issue? My shoes. I was wearing the wrong footwear, which calloused my feet and threw my gait cycle off, which accounted for the all the pain in my ankles, knees, and back. There was one shoe I was wearing that was not wide enough for my foot, and as a result I had hyperpronation in my foot, which made my bunion hurt which in turn threw my knee and hip out which threw my back out of alignment. As you can see, something as simple as footwear can have a far reaching effect on the rest of the body.
Nevertheless, during this time I couldn’t breathe because of the pain and discomfort (I have a history of asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, and sinus infection), and was getting nervous. I went to the doctors, and to a chiropractor, and soon everything was beginning to feel better, especially when I changed my footwear to a properly sized shoe. There were three things I had to change in order to heal my body.
1. Get new footwear that was properly sized.
2. Do my daily exercises on a regular basis.
3. Change my socks on a regular basis.
All in all, it took about seven months to fix this issue with my body. After going through this whole ordeal I am practicing more preventive measures to avoid this sort of thing happening again. Now my body feels the way it should, and I am training for my fifth marathon.
I suppose the most important takeaway from this is to pay attention to your body. Don’t ignore it. Our bodies can handle a lot, but if there is something wrong our bodies will tell us, and it is up to us to listen. No one else can listen for us. If you think something is wrong then there probably is, and the longer you hold off doing something about it the worse the problem will get. So be sure to listen to what your body is telling you. It could be something as simple as wearing the wrong footwear!