Injuries are an inevitable part of being a runner if you are not taking care to stretch, cross train and watch your nutrition. Sometimes however that achy, soreness you may feel in the first 24 to 48 hours after a long or hard workout may be mistaken for an injury, but in fact it is DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness.
DOMS is the result of working your muscles in an unfamiliar way causing microscopic tears and inflammation from eccentric movements; movements that cause muscles to contract while they lengthen. This may be experienced as stiffness, fatigue, muscle and/or weakness.
While DOMS can be annoying it is not permanent and can be avoided. Warming up completely, that is walking or running slowly until you start to sweat before moving on to the speed portion of your run, or run flat to the hill for your hill repeats instead of just starting at the bottom. Build up gradually. If your program calls for three to six repeats of something, do three on the first outing, working up to the six repeats over four weeks. Work the distance of your long run up slowly, no more than 10% per week, inserting a recovery week every fourth week to assist in repair. Make stretching after your run or cycle a habit. Cool baths, ice baths or a soak in Epsom salts can also reduce DOMS.
If you still experience DOMS, things will feel better by the third day. To speed up recovery drink lots of fluid, do light easy workouts to increase blood flow which will help remove waste and reduce soreness, stretch and/or get a massage. Wait until all of your muscle soreness has gone before doing another hard workout.
If your DOMS has not gone away within a week it is time to get it checked out to see if you have incurred an actual injury.
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At the HSBC Lakeside Sprint Duathlon (3/18/3) Leanne Soden crossed the line first in her age group (35-39) with a time of 1:09:46 while David Conroy crossed the line of the Sprint Tri (500/18/4) in 1:15:06. Cassandra Bonn ran the Run/Walk 4 Patrick Family 10k in 54:34.
The Beat Beethoven 4k/8k was well attended by local runners. While the 4k was not timed, here are the 8k results in no particular order. Damon Allen (30:00), Lisa Allery (43:35), Jerry Dirocco (53:00), Janet Foran-Goneau (41:49), Agustin Garcia (42:19), Matt Gareipy (31:29), Steve Gareipy (34:40), Chris Geen (37:56), Ryan Geen (37:57), Paige Harding (43:28), Mike Kelly (32:25), Jennifer Lafrance (47:01), Donna Lott (39:13), Jennifer MacDonald (41:48), Ronald MacDonald (40:33), Cathy MacFarlane (51:58), Teresa Macintyre (51:58), Donna Mitchell-Parry (39:13), Dave Penny (31:22), Debbie Penny (53:03), Joy Petch (43:54), Bryan Waite (35:44), Diane Harper (41:53), Scott Faulds (27:52), David Rice (59:24), Kathy Rice (43:39), Stacey Berdan (36:57), and Gilles Bouchard (46:29).
Race applications are out for the Canada Day 5k Dash at Zwicks Park. Forms can be found here -
http://www.redballradio.com/runners/DASH_09.pdf, Red Ball Radio or Tri & Run Sports.
