Returning hamstring issue 9 days out from marathon - advice? (Read 84 times)

I've been dealing with a chronic low grade on again, off again hamstring issue for the last 16 weeks. Some days and even weeks I have no discomfort at all while running, even on long runs, other days it just seems to keep sending me text messages letting me know it has not left town completely. This morning after my run it has returned with a bit more tenacity, aching like a toothache deep in the belly of my hamstring and continuing on most of the day.

As I am 9 days out from my marathon, I'm am pondering what best to do. First off, I am 68 and this will be my last marathon. My goal this go around is to finish in a respectful time while taking in the sights and sounds of the event. I have no specific PR goal in mind at all.

My choices so far are:

1. Rest completely with only walking until race day and try to heal up as much as possible, accepting the fact that I will lose some fitness gains by doing that.

2. Do some easy light cross training like the elliptical every other day

3. Rest for the weekend and if it feels better, try for a very easy 2-3 mile every other day run next week.

I've also had dry needling done in the past with some success and thought of maybe getting my PT do do that again on Monday, although I wonder if having something like that done so close to race day might be a bit risky.

Thoughts?

As for the other question - I would go with either light cross-training or gentle running every other day, using discomfort as your guide.

This is a soft tissue injury, and IME those don't respond well to complete rest.  You need a small bit of stress on it to promote bloodflow, keep the tissue mobile, and otherwise just encourage it to heal.

Good luck with the race. I had a similar thing a few years back 2 weeks before a half. Bad hamstring pull, had trouble walking fir a few days. Too late to defer or cancel my hotel reservation, so I tried to come up with a plan. I found a really good PT person who specialized in ART, trigger point, and deep tissue work. They pounded me out, found spots where there was potential scarring, and gave me some exercises to do, and recommended only running a few days before the race, and when I do run, do run walk intervals to keep the stress down. The odd thing they recommended was to do as much of my walk intervals backwards to relieve stress. And it worked.

I do fully think we are all an experiment of one, so if you had good results with dry needling, do it instead of the deep tissue work that was good for me. But I will suggest the run walk intervals. I was amazed at how that kept the stress from building up as I healed.

Thanks to all of you for responding - I do genuinely appreciate it.

John,  I am doing the walk run thing now, but will shorten the run intervals and lengthen the walk intervals while adding the backward walking. Just curious, I'm assuming you are much younger than I, but how did the half marathon go - did your hamstring issue limit you or nag you the entire way? I'm expecting mine to let me know it is there, but hoping to run through the discomfort by employing a slower pace and liberal walk breaks, but it is unknown territory as I've never dealt with this type of injury before.

Tchuck,

It is feeling much better today and no pain with walking or climbing steps. If I bend over and put a little stretch on it, I definitely feel it, so I am trying to avoid that movement or any static stretching like the plague. I have done strength and core training for nearly all of my life and continued with 45 minute sessions 3X per week during my marathon training. I'm a firm believer in strength and prehab training for running and have always incorporated that into my running programs, even more so as I've aged. The marathon itself has been postponed three times and so in essence, I've kind of been in perpetual training mode for 2.5 years, and my PT thinks my body is simply showing the effects of this. A week ago I ran an 18 miler and the hamstring felt fine the entire time, but the next day it was fairly sore and achy and has not returned to normal since. Again, my PT believes that even though I never had an "Oh, sh#*$" moment where I felt something go, I probably sustained a lot of micro-tears in the muscle and now when I go to run again, I'm picking the scab off the wound , so to speak.

The dry needling did seem to help, and allowed me to run a short 5 miler two days after, but two days after that an 8 miler left me sore and achy again, so I guess thinking things were okey dokey was fools gold. I have been doing the hot Epsom salt baths and walking 4-5 miles per day, and also doing soft tissue flossing with VooDoo bands on the hamstring before and after every walking or cross training exercise as recommended by my PT.

John,   That is encouraging that you were able to run it mostly pain free. Do you remember any of the exercises they prescribed?

You know, I've been running for 55 years - ever since I posted a good time in the 600 yard dash as part of the President's Physical Fitness testing at my junior high school and the Phys Ed coach told me to show up on the track for cross country practice the next day. Notice I said "told me" and not "asked me". You could do stuff like that back then. Anyway, I never stopped running and didn't have so much as a sore muscle until I hit about 56 and then the wheels started coming off injury wise. It really stinks because my motivation, drive,  and ambition are as high as ever, but my body is trying to get through to my stubborn head that it's had enough of the long distance stuff. This upcoming marathon is my swan song for marathons - not so much because I wouldn't want to keep doing some, but my body just won't tolerate the training as a second job anymore. I plan to keep running as long as I can get out the door, but increasingly more for continued peace of mind and overall fitness.

Sorry to hear about your calf issue. Been there, done that. It was the one injury that actually stopped me in my tracks and made me take some time off. Dry needling was the only thing that helped me with that and I tried everything.

I would give it a rest and change plans for a later race, say in the spring, to give time for a good recovery before gradually returning to training.  I had a calf pull last year and it took 8 weeks before I would no longer feel it on test runs.  Early this year I had a bad high hamstring injury near the sitbone while trying sprints on a track that has taken a long time, but tendons harder to heal than perhaps something "deep in the belly" of the muscle.  I've found that if I run too early in any recovery process I can re-injure the tissue and and be forced back to square one. That's how it's been for me in the last 5 years or more (I'm 74).

reggie888,

 Unfortunately, rescheduling is not an option - an 800 mile trip with reservations already made for the week and no refunds at this point. Fortunately, this seems to be a more 'deep in the belly' issue rather than proximal tendinopathy.  If I were planning on running anything long in the future, I would agree with you 100% and be more concerned about re-injury, but this is it for the long stuff, so I'm more concerned with just finishing and trying to mitigate the pain as much as possible along the way. Thanks for your wisdom and expertise - I do appreciate it.

tchuck,

Thanks for the encouraging words - I need that. I certainly anticipate significant soreness after the run, and probably a fair amount of discomfort during the run, but as long as it is not enough to stop me, I'll soldier on. As someone once told me, if you make friends with pain, you'll never run alone, and I have found that to be true. I just need to get to the starting line in one piece and then pray for strength to see me through. Thank you again - I do genuinely appreciate it.

At a week out from your marathon, please remember that you are not going to lose fitness gains if you rest now. This should be taper time anyway. Good luck!