Hey Reader!

As another week passes, the event season is drawing closer and closer! This doesn't matter for some, but for others, it is an exciting time of the year.

Over in Houston, they hold an early season marathon and half-marathon, with the marathon being historically competitive. 2025 was no different! The US men's and women's half marathon records were broken, the former having stood for 17 years.

Australia also had stand-out performances, with Lauren Ryan finishing 6th Female and setting the fourth fastest Australian time ever, and Morgan McDonald finishing 13th overall and setting the fourth fastest Australian time in his debut!

Speak to any practitioner, physiotherapist, podiatrist, etc, and they'll likely tell you that runners have a distorted relationship with pain. As runners, as our training age increases, we go through countless niggles, some that progress to injuries and some, perhaps most, that disappear with a little bit of TLC.

This process hardens us to pain, creates new baselines and thresholds for what we are willing to accept daily, and is helpful for our training. The challenge is knowing when to push through and when to pull back.

I see this all the time in coaching. Because I ask all my athletes to reflect on their runs and comment after each, we can track trends easily. This means I see just how frequent these niggles - heightened areas of awareness that are uncomfortable but not worrisome, yet - are and how so many do go away without any/only moderate alteration in load and how some can progress to more serious problems.

As a disclaimer, this is not me telling you what is okay to run on and what is not. I am not a medical professional or a licenced practitioner. This is the framework I apply in coaching, executed with referral to practitioner collaborators, and it is not perfect nor foolproof. It helps me to know when we need to monitor vs act so that we are not halting training unnecessarily with the understanding that running is a high-load sport and thus will frequently have awareness events.

Learn to listen to your body

I mentioned asking my athletes to go through a reflective process where they comment after their runs. Partially, this is to give me more data to compare to Heart Race, Pace, Cadence, etc, for their runs and workouts - I may see what looks like a well-executed workout when looking at the stats, yet the athlete may have gone through a world of physical or emotional challenge to create this output, and so knowing the whole picture is vital.

The other part of this process of reflection is for each athlete to have the space to become more in tune with their body. Especially because I coach online, enabling and encouraging a deep degree of self-analysis is vital to my effectiveness. I can't see their form change mid-rep because their knee aches. I can't hear their breathing become shallow and rapid towards the end of the workout. I can't hear the lack of typical enthusiasm before the run.

You, the athlete, can, though.

The first step in knowing when you can push and when you need to pull back is to become more aware of the sensations in your body during different types of runs and afterwards. As you become more aware, you will better understand what is normal for you, what feels like awareness but not an issue, and what feels different and/or new.

Look for a pattern

If you've been running for a month or more, you will know now that we all get aches. When you increase your load - this goes for new runners or runners trying to break fast personal bests - the body has to go through a breakdown, recovery, and adaptation process towards a new normal.

The breakdown component of this process is where tissue and joint capacity can be exceeded because we don't have the strength and resiliency to cope with the load.

And this is where it gets complicated, confusing, and often scary.

Some of these niggles come and go very quickly, as I have said. Suppose you are sleeping well, eating well, prioritising strength and mobility (read this article), and are not continually increasing your load at a rate your body can not handle. In that case, you can often recover just fine.

When one or more of these factors are not up to par with your training desire, then the niggle can progress into something more sinister. This is where keeping a written (or typed) account of when something starts to feel off and what the issue feels like is vital.

Not only does this help you reflect on the severity of the pain - often, it is not until we pay the issue our full attention that we start to accept the problem we may have - but it also allows you to see the pattern.

In coaching, I am looking for something that comes up 3 to 4 times over a couple of weeks or isn't improving over a 3 to 5-day period. This is not based on any scientific evidence. Instead, it is based on the patterning I have observed for what does and does not become a more significant issue. This protocol also has grey areas; when someone returns from an injury, they are given the all-clear, yet they still experience fluctuating degrees of pain. Over time, we can see the pain trend is down (which is good), but if you were to isolate one run, even 2, it could be very alarming.

There is also a lot of individual variability in this. As you go through niggle or injury cycles, pay attention to what your cycle may be; look back at your notes and identify when something progressed to an injury or how long a niggle stuck around before disappearing and if you did anything that helped or hindered.

Utilise a weekly rest day

This piece of advice is for more advanced athletes. If you run 6 days per week, I strongly advise you to keep that one rest day a week. Why? It acts as an insurance policy and gives us a mental reprieve from training.

Our bodies don't need this day off. If you have completed six days of running, perhaps including double-run days, you should have a well-trained, seasoned, and strong body. The idea is that taking 52 days off per year, spread out each week, helps with consistency and avoids week-long or longer breaks from training.

Many sub-elite and elite athletes do not follow this specific schedule. They might take a break every 10 to 14 days, once a month, or as needed. For you, ensure you incorporate a day with very light activity - like walking, swimming, a leisurely bike ride - or opt for complete rest.

Take 3 days off

If you have noticed something that feels worse than normal, is hanging around, or is progressing in severity, take three days off. You will not lose fitness during this time, but it will hopefully give the tissue or joint the recovery it needs to return from a period of high stress or under-recovery!

The idea here, which I first heard from SWAP coaches David and Megan Roche, is that if something doesn't feel significantly better in this period (especially with rehab exercises), then it's likely a more serious problem. This also goes for sickness.

If this works, then take 3 to 7 days to build back to normal training, and, whilst doing so, see if there is an obvious cause for the niggle arising. If you can find it, adjust, and if not, double down on a colourful, high protein and carbohydrate diet, aim for 8 hours of sleep with as much before midnight as possible, and make sure you are doing your pre-run activation and post-run mobility - check out last weeks newsletter.

See a practitioner

This point goes alongside taking 3 days off. I still find that too many people resist going and seeing a qualified practitioner who can genuinely help them. Regardless of the reason, seeing an Osteopath, Myotherapist, or Podiatrist when these niggles hang around or are a potential injury is the most surefire way to prioritise your body.

I fully acknowledge that these cost money. However, responsive and proactive treatment can prevent a 3-day break from becoming a bigger problem. Find a practitioner with experience treating endurance athletes, specifically runners, and if seeing a podiatrist, make sure they do not have a high rate of orthotic use.

Closing Thoughts

Understanding our bodies is difficult and takes practice. Implementing a reflective process and being proactive when issues fall outside one's norms is essential to longevity and progress in running. We don't need to stop at every bit of awareness, but we do need to pay attention.

Please let me know if you have any practitioner recommendations in your area. It is very helpful to have go-tos when someone asks about an area I do not have contacts in!

Have a fantastic day! James ​Website | Email​ Head over to 2XU and use code JAMESSIEBER20 for 20% off. Treating ourselves to quality running gear can transform a run! Save 20% at forRunners. Unleash your running potential with personalised, physio-designed pilates workouts AND yoga. Conquer miles with confidence, free from pain. ​​​

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