Running Injuries

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought.

Possible this is running Lean.

Hey there and welcome to episode 288 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today dumb stuff runners do and what to do instead. So we’ve all done it, worn cotton socks on a long run or tried something new on race day, or asked a Facebook group to diagnose our injury.

Listen, runners are awesome, but we also do some pretty dumb stuff sometimes. The good news is that every dumb mistake is just an opportunity to learn and to grow. So in this episode, I’m laying out dumb stuff runners do, and I’m gonna share what you should do instead. This is gonna be a little more lighthearted episode, but also brutally honest.

I wanna look at the common mistakes that a lot of us runners make, even me that can lead to injury. Or burnout or stalled progress. And there’s no judgment here because I’ve done most of these things myself. Um, this is all about helping you to train smarter, to stay healthy, and to become a stronger, more efficient runner.

So if you’re ready to stop doing dumb stuff and start running with purpose, this episode is for you. But first, here’s the truth. A lot of run runners are struggling. They’re training hard, but not seeing results. Running still feels harder than it should. The weight isn’t coming off, the strength isn’t improving, and no matter how many miles they log, they just can’t seem to break through.

If any of this sounds familiar, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Most runners are missing. Just a few key ingredients, things like having a smart personalized training plan, having a real nutrition strategy that supports your goals, and most importantly, having a coach who actually gets you. And that’s where I come in.

My coaching program is designed specifically for runners who wanna lose weight. Get stronger and finally feel good about their running Again, this isn’t some one size fits all plan. This is real coaching with real results. So if you’re ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making some serious progress, head over to my website runningleancoaching.com.

Click on work with me. Let’s work together to get you leaner. To get you stronger and to get you running at your full potential. Okay, so today I wanted to talk about dumb stuff that runners do, and then of course I’m gonna offer some tips on maybe what you should do instead. But I was having coffee this morning with my fiancee Jill, and we were talking about some.

Something that some runner we saw posted something and we are like, that’s so dumb. Why do people do that? We should really tell people that they shouldn’t do this dumb stuff. You know, I’m not gonna mention what it was exactly. I don’t want to get anybody in trouble or anything like that. But it was just something that we’ve seen people do before.

Um, and it may be something I mentioned in here, but again, I don’t wanna call me out on anything here. And so I thought, you know what? I should just do my podcast episode today, all about this dumb stuff. So I just, she and I just kind of went through and we came up with a list of, of some fun things and dumb things that all of us do and, and I thought this would be kind of a fun episode to do, but also, I hope you learn something from this today.

Like, you know, as much as we love running, we, we can all kind of do some dumb stu dumb stuff sometimes, especially if you’re new to running, you know, stuff that can lead to, uh, derailing our training or, or lead to injury or slow our progress or just make. Running a lot harder than it needs to be. Um, and like I said before, I’ve done a lot of this stuff myself.

Early on in my running days, I made all kinds of mistakes, you know, so this isn’t about shaming anyone, it’s just about awareness. You know, it’s about shining a light on the dumb things that we all do so that we can stop doing them and start making better decisions about running. Okay? So let’s get into the first part of this, which is what I’m calling, like mindset mistakes.

Okay. So the first one is this. Okay, asking Facebook to diagnose your injury. Let me just say this as clearly as possible. Facebook is not your doctor. Neither is your running buddy, Karen. Okay. When you’re injured, the smartest thing you can do is consult a professional, a sports doc, a pt, an athletic trainer, not some stranger on the internet who tells you to ice it and take a rest day.

So if you’re in pain. Stop crowdsourcing your treatment and go see a pro. I promise it’ll save you time, frustration, and probably your entire race season. This is something I see so often where people are like, I’m in a bunch of different Facebook groups, you know, running Facebook groups and people will say, my ankle hurts.

What do you guys think it is? What should I do? Like we don’t know. I mean, even a PT wouldn’t tell you what to do or what’s wrong with you. Um, based on my ankle hurts, right? So just go see somebody, go see a professional, you know, ask them about that. Another thing, um, I see a lot is, uh, people asking Facebook for advice on which shoes they should wear.

You know, what, what shoes should I wear? Well, we, we can’t tell you that. Nobody knows what shoes you could wear. Go to go to a, a running specialty store, try on a bunch of different shoes, one on one foot, one on the other, run a little bit in in those, pick the one that feels better, and then repeat that process until you come up with the ultimate shoe for you, which is gonna be different for everybody.

Okay? So it’s, it’s an individualized thing. You can’t just tell somebody, oh, this is the best shoe for you, right? So stop going to Facebook and asking for things like, you know, how should I deal with this pain that I’m having? Okay. That’s number one. Number two, trying to run through pain. Like, pain is information, right?

It’s your body’s, uh, it’s kind of an alarm going off and it’s telling you, Hey, you know, you need to do something about this. Not just, you should tough it out because you’re, you’re ignoring a giant red flag, right? This isn’t a rocky movie. Uh, you need to rest, you recover. You’re not David Goggins. You don’t need to run on broken feet.

You don’t need to end up in the emergency room after every run, okay? Do what you need to do so you don’t turn some little tweak into a full blown injury. Okay? So don’t just run through the pain. Um, you know, take a moment again, go seek some professional help and find out what’s really going on before you really injure yourself.

Number three, setting unrealistic goals. I love people who are ambitious. I love new runners who get excited about running. I love big goals. But if you haven’t run in five years and your goal is to run a Boston qualifier in six weeks or something, hmm, we need to have a discussion about that. Okay? So yes, set big goals.

That’s awesome, but make sure they’re grounded in reality. Okay. Build slowly be patient. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve worked with who have set unrealistically high goals and not been able to achieve them. And it gets frustrating for them and they feel frustrated and they want to give up on everything because they, they couldn’t, you know, hit their marathon pr uh, in three months or whatever it was.

Okay, so set realistic goals, not unrealistic goals. Number four, comparing yourself to everyone on str, on Strava. Like just stop doing that. You have no idea what someone else’s training looks like behind the scenes, what injuries they’ve been dealing with, how much rest they’re getting, what they’re eating, how long they’ve been doing this.

The only person you should be comparing yourself is to you from yesterday. Okay, are, are you better than you were a month ago? Then? That is great, but stop comparing yourself to everybody else. It’s just, it doesn’t do you any good. Usually when we compare ourselves to others, we come out on the bottom. We always look at other people as being better, and so we just look at ourselves as being worse in some way.

So stop doing that. Number five, thinking more is better. So running more miles, doing more races, squeezing in more workouts doesn’t always make you better. In fact, it can lead to over training, burnout, injury. The key is not more running or more training, but smarter training. Okay, so have a plan. Have a plan that incorporates rest and recovery days.

I know people that do these running streaks and they want to keep their running streak alive no matter what. Even if they’re super sick or they’re injured, they’re gonna keep running because they gotta keep the streak alive. Hmm. Is that really the best decision there? I don’t know. I would say, I would say no.

I think we need to be smarter about that stuff. Okay, this next bit is kind of on training mistakes. Um, and this’ll be number six. So number six is running too fast on easy days. So this one’s big because a lot of people just go out there and they do all their runs, kind of moderately hard. Um, easy runs should feel easy.

I know it’s shocking, but if your heart rate is spiking and your breathing feels labored. You’re not doing your zone one or two training, you’re, you’re doing more ego running, okay? Be honest. Slow down so that you can speed up later. And the same goes for, uh, running, uh, too slow on your hard days, right? So number seven on the flip side of this is like some runners hold back too much during their speed work or their tempo runs.

These runs are supposed to feel tough. They’re supposed to be hard. You’re supposed to push yourself, push that threshold, um, run faster than your goal pace. During tempo runs run much faster than a 5K pace during those shorter intervals. Um, but what a lot of people do is they just go too easy on those hard days.

So you want your hard days hard, you want your easy days, easy. So we wanna be doing a combination of, uh, slower, longer running, moderate intensity, medium length runs, and then some very short, uh, runs, but high intensity. And that’s the magic formula right there, that that’s what builds the best cardiovascular system, increases your VO O2 max and makes you the most efficient runner pro possible.

Okay? But that does require you to go easy on, easy days and, and hard on, hard days. Number eight, not fueling properly. Um, coffee and vibes, not necessarily a great pre-run breakfast. You do need some fuel when you’re going certain distances. Now I do talk a lot about fasted running, and I think there’s a lot of benefits to doing that, but that doesn’t mean we do that all the time.

So you do need some fuel sometimes, sometimes you need some carbs, you need electrolytes. Um, you need, uh, post run recovery fuel. You know, so stop treating fuel, like it’s just some afterthought. Uh, start fueling properly. Plan this stuff. Practice your fueling strategy for raise day, all that stuff. Number nine, skipping strength training.

Listen, this is not optional. Skipping strength training should not be part of your plan. It’s essential, helps you run faster, prevents injuries, builds durability. It improves your endurance. Just two strength session sessions a week can change everything for you can build muscle. Running is catabolic. It breaks you down.

Uh, doing strength training builds you back up, so you’ve gotta do that strength training consistently. Number 10, never taking a rest day. Rest is when your body actually, you know, recovers it, repairs, it gets stronger. And if you’re running seven days a week, like I mentioned, people like to do, to do these running streaks and you’re not building in any, any kind of recovery time.

You’re just digging yourself into a hole. Right? Rest is not laziness. It’s strategy. It’s part of it should be part of your running plan. Okay? So take those rest days. Number 11, adding quote unquote bonus workouts. Your training plan exists for a reason. Adding in some random 10 miler on a rest day because you felt good is a lot of times it leads to burnout and injury.

You know, you get sidelined. Stick to your plan. Don’t add in all these bonus workouts, okay? Um, do not risk over training. Okay? We gotta be careful with that. I know it’s some days you feel good, that’s, that means your body’s repairing and recovering. That’s a good thing. You wanna show up the next day, you’re gonna be even better if you do rest.

Okay. Number 12, doing the same run over and over again. Just going the same pace with the same distance, the same route, and doing the same thing over and over again. I get it. You know, we leave our house, we have this one loop that we like to do in our neighborhood, and we can get back home and it’s e easy and quick and everything, but your body needs different stressors to adapt and to improve and to grow.

Variety matters. So mix it up sometimes, okay? You don’t have to do the same thing. Um, all the time. And it doesn’t have to be different all the time either, but occasionally do mix things up. Especially vary the terrain hills, rolling hills, um, flats, and a mixture of all that. Number 13, coming back too fast from injury.

Just because it doesn’t hurt anymore doesn’t mean it’s healed completely. So ease back into running slowly. Talk to your, you know, doctor or physical therapist, or orthopedic doc, whatever. Be conservative. You only get. You know, one set of knees or hips or ankles or whatever. So don’t overdo it. Just come back from an injury and come back slowly and build that intensity slowly over time.

Same thing if you haven’t been running for a long time, um, not from an injury, but just because you just got away from it, that’s fine, but just come back slowly. Don’t try to do too much too soon. Okay, this next section is all about race day mistakes, and we’re on to number 14. I got 25 of these for you guys, so you can kind of follow along here.

Um, race day mistakes number 14 on my list of 25 things that are that, that are dumb, dumb stuff that runners do. Number 14, trying something new on race day. Don’t do it. Just don’t do it. New shoes, a whole new outfit, new fueling strategy. Race day is not the time for experimentation. Nothing new on race day ever, period.

Just don’t do that. Okay. I get it. It’s fun to try new things. Do it in your training. Do it in your training. If you’re trying to, um, have a successful race and you try something that you’ve never done before, like fuel and it makes you sick to your stomach, you’re gonna have a really bad day out there. Um, so nothing new on race day I.

Number 15. Not dressing for the weather. For the weather. So if it is going to be cool at the start line and you dress warm so that you stay warm at the start line, you’re going to suffer. At some point you are going, your body’s going to warm up. You know, by the third or fourth mile you’re going to warm up.

You know, eight or 10 degrees, and the weather typically does warm up as the day goes on as well. Um, so you want to dress for the finish, not for the start. So if it’s, if you’re going to be hotter and the weather’s gonna be warmer at the finish of the race, then make sure you. Dress appropriately at the start of the race.

Some things that we do to stay warm while we’re waiting in the corral for a race to start, or even on a training run, you can, I’ve seen a lot of people do this lately, wear an old bathrobe. You know, people do that. Or they wear a, a hoodie or a sweater or something, or a sweatshirt that they can just throw away.

You know, something like that is fine. Or a lot of times you just throw ’em on the side of the road. They collect those and give ’em to homeless people and stuff like that, which is awesome. Or just take a plastic bag, cut a couple holes in it, and then you’ve got yourself a. Homemade poncho that you can wear that’ll, um, keep you dry if it’s raining, but also it traps that warmth in there.

What I do is, you know, at the end of a race when they give you those Mylar blankets that you wrap around you that keep you warm, I just keep those, I take it home, I fold it up, like spread it out, fold it up, and then I just use that for the next race, and then I throw it away and then I get a new one, and then I repeat that process.

So that’s a fun little trick right there. So make sure you dress for the finish. Uh, number 16, going out too fast. This is so common. At the start of a race, the adrenaline is going. They got the music blaring. You’re in a such a good place. You’ve been training for this, you’re excited. Um, but listen, if the first two miles, you’re just cranking out a pace that’s like two minutes faster than your goal pace, you are going to pay for that later.

I have done this many, many times. Be careful not to go out too fast. The best race strategy, really the most effective, most efficient way to pace a race is to get into your. Goal pace. Quickly. Um, a lot of times it’s hard to navigate a lot of people at the start of a race. So the first, you know, half mile or mile might be a little crowded, but do your best to settle into your pace and then maintain that effort for the d for the duration of your event.

Maintain that effort for the duration of the event. That means that. That same effort level, you should try to just focus on that, whether that’s an RPE, a rate of perceived exertion of, of like a five or a six or something like that. Maybe it’s comfortably hard for you and you’re running a half marathon.

That’s perfect. Run that effort level. You might slow down a little bit going uphill. You might speed up a little bit, going downhill, so your pace is gonna vary. Effort should feel the same. That’s the most efficient pacing strategy right there. Uh, number 17, another race day mistake. Not hitting the port-A-potty beforehand.

TCB at home. Take care of business at home. If you can do as much of that as you need to do, whether it’s. Number one. Number two, whatever you gotta do, get that stuff out of the system as far in advance as possible. If you gotta use a porta-potty, know that there’s gonna be lines. And that sometimes it’s, you know, long lines.

So just be mindful of that. What I do sometimes is if I really need to go, I’ll wait until I get to mile four or five, you know, when the crowds have thinned out and they’ve, they’ve got porta-potties along a race, and I’ll just jump in there real quick. But, you know, whatever you need to do, just try to get that stuff out of the way ahead of time.

Do it at home if possible. Uh, another dump thing, uh, that runners do is lining up in the wrong corral on race day, right? So don’t, if you’re, if you’re running like a 10 minute pace, don’t line up with the seven minute milers, okay? If your goal is to run a four hour marathon, don’t line up with the three 30 people.

You know, it’s you, you wanna be where you should be, not thinking like, oh, if I need to get in front of all these other people, you know? And if you’re somebody that runs with like a stroller. Or you got dogs. I don’t know. Some of these races don’t allow that kind of stuff. But if you’re like a walker and you got a bunch of people with you and all that, and you guys are just gonna be walking the whole thing, do not line up at the front lineup in the back.

Okay? Don’t be dumb. Okay? And this next section is all about gear and nutrition mistakes, and we’re up to number 19. Um, and this is about ignoring chafing and ignoring blisters. Listen. Blisters and chafing are terrible. You are going to be miserable if you do not prepare for this, especially for the longer distance stuff.

I’ve had some friends that have had to drop out of a hundred mile races because of really debilitating chafing. Do not. Subject yourself to that. Lube it up. Put lube places you don’t think you would need lube. Trust me, you’ll thank me later. Bandaid, those nipples, dudes. You know, whatever you need to do.

Don’t try to be a hero. Just grease everything up. You know, you can’t wait until you’ve got a blister to like, decide you need to put some, uh, you know, balm on your feet or something like that. Uh, number 20, not charging your watch. Make sure your watch is charged ahead of time, or your headphones or your phone or whatever you’re gonna have with you.

Um, and make sure you don’t forget that stuff. Um, good friend of mine forgot his watch during a marathon. Just showed up without it. Um, so that kind of stuff happens sometimes, but just be careful, uh, to, to make sure that all the stuff is charged ahead of time. Set it out ahead of time. Um, make sure that all your stuff is ready to go.

Uh, number 21 wearing cotton, anything. Socks, shirts, underwear. Cotton is the devil when you’re sweating, right? The, the mantra is cotton is rotten and should be forgotten. Okay, so just don’t wear cotton. Anything you wanna wear moisture wicking. Uh, gear that’s made for running so that it pulls that wicks that sweat away from your body and helps to cool you off and can evaporate that sweat away.

The, the cotton just holds onto the sweat and, and it will make you miserable. You wanna talk about chafing? Mm. Wear cotton. You’ll experience a lot of chafing. You wanna talk about, you know, uh, just being miserable and, and getting blisters. Wear cotton socks. Oh, it’s brutal. I’ve done that. I’ve worn some cotton socks way back in the day before I realized that what I was doing.

Just don’t do that. It’s recipe for disaster. Uh, okay. Number 22, wearing race swag during the race. Okay. I’ve always said that I will never wear a race shirt for a race I haven’t finished. So don’t wear your race shirt for the race that you’re running till after the race. You have to earn that shirt. Okay?

You don’t get to wear that during the race. I know people do it, and I know that I’m being a little bit. Goofy here, whatever. It’s kind of a vibe thing, but also we call it like bad luck. Don’t wear the race shirt during the race. That’s just one of those things we do not do. Okay. That’s I, that’s a rookie move right there.

So if you’re doing that, congratulations, you get to graduate past the rookie status here, because now you’re not gonna do that one. You gotta earn it. Um. Number 23 Undereating, right? You just can’t run well if you’re not fueling properly. We kind of talked about that, but it also has to do with like. Your general eating, like you’d wanna make sure that during the week and during your training that you’re just eating properly.

I know a lot of people who want to lose weight, you know, they want to, um, become fat adapted and so they tend to like. Go towards the, the eating on the low end of the spectrum. Do not do that. Make sure you’re eating properly, you’re fueling yourself properly. You gotta be able to recover. You need protein, you need fats, you need some carbs in order to recover from running, uh, especially if you’re a long distance runner.

And you just can’t run Well if you’re undereating, it’s just a recipe for disaster. You’re a machine, you’re a running machine, you gotta fuel the machine. Okay. Um, and that brings me to number 24, which is during doing fasted long runs without a plan. So I, I talk about being fat adapted and doing some fasted runs and things like that to help with that fat adaptation process.

But a lot of people don’t understand what they’re doing and they just do super long runs, fasted, and they kind of feel terrible at the end, and they have no energy and they just don’t really have a plan. You know, just because you, you heard me talk about this, doesn’t mean that, you know, you should do that for every run.

You know, I think there’s, uh, a place for doing fasted, running up to a certain distance, a certain amount of miles or a certain amount of time on your feet, and then you wanna fuel so that you’re giving your body what it needs in order to continue to run at that particular pace or that intensity level for the long run.

You know, maybe it’s 90 minutes, maybe it’s two hours for you. Typically, I tend to start fueling around the 90 minute mark if I’m doing a run that’s more than that. I’m gonna make sure that I fuel before and during. So usually it’s like half marathon and up is where I’m kind of making sure I’m fueling.

And then you gotta practice that fueling in your training. You don’t just do it on race day. Um, and then number 25, using running as punishment for what you ate. This mindset is kind of toxic and it’s really unsustainable. And I hate, I think this is really dumb and I hear people talk about this. All the time.

It’s like, uh, I run so I can eat whatever I want. I’m just gonna eat a bunch of garbage all the time and feel terrible. Then I’ll, I’ll try, I’ll try to run it off. So I’m using running as like punishment for this terrible eating habit. You know, don’t do that. Like, this sounds terrible, doesn’t it? When I say it that way, it’s, it’s toxic.

It’s like a toxic mindset. It and it leads to some really disordered eating. It’s kind of a disordered eating pattern if you guy eat a bunch of junk and then you’re gonna try to run it off. Yeah, that, just don’t do that. Okay. Love yourself. Love yourself through this process. Okay. All right. I hope you got something outta this episode.

Maybe a couple of chuckles. I don’t know, maybe you learned a few things. Um, maybe there’s some things you can start changing and start becoming a little bit of a better runner right now. And remember, every runner does this dumb stuff. I’ve done this stuff. The pros have done this stuff. The goal isn’t to be perfect.

Um, it’s just to learn from maybe dumb stuff that other people do or maybe from our own mistakes, but I want you to become stronger and smarter and more efficient. And that just takes practice, it takes experience. And I’m hoping that sharing the experience of dumb things runners do will actually help you.

Um, and if you want some help with all this stuff dialing in your. Your training, your nutrition, your mindset. So you’re not out here Googling how to like tape your knees at 2:00 AM You can talk to me, just head over to my website runningleancoaching.com and I’ll help you train smarter, not dumber.

Alright, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean. I will talk to you soon.