Thursday, August 30, 2012

Day Seven: Running Can Be a Pain In The Neck, Apparently

Today was day four of the couch-5k program, which is day 1 of week 2 of training. I upped my running/walking times from 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking to 90 seconds of running and 2 minutes of walking. It wasn't so bad and it helped that I had a buddy along. I roped my neighbor in to running with me, and while he is not normally a runner he admitted that the pace of the c25k program was manageable. Maybe I'll have a buddy for the 5k I run in October!

Now for the serious item of business. I am going to spread the word about my blog more so that I may get input for other runners, both amateur like myself and more experienced. My first concern that arose today is muscle tightness and pain in my neck after I run. This came up today for the first time, but I would not be surprised if it came up more often and became more of an issue for me because I have always had problems with tightness in my neck and shoulders ESPECIALLY when I get stressed.

So what do you do to prevent this? Is there anything I can do before or during my run to prevent this from happening? I took two ibuprofen when I got back to my apartment and the pain and tightness has subsided. I'm not sure if that is because of the painkillers (it took about 15 minutes for the feeling to go away) or just that my body relaxed, but I'm assuming if it was the latter I will soon have bigger issues when my body decides it is sick of relaxing after a run and my neck becomes knot city.

All in all, I feel great after today's run and dog wasn't QUITE as much of a little jerk. Yay for dog.

1 comment:

  1. neck and shoulder tightness is dumb, attack it with like a heated neck pillow thingy and try to massage them with your hands or see if someone will help work on them. or consider getting an electric/handheld thingy to work on them easier, because unfortunately they'll stay there if you don't force them out. also try increasing the amount of plain water you're drinking, even if it doesn't help on the knots it's just a good thing to do when training. good luck with le running,
    -Jeff w

    ReplyDelete