Ring the changes in your running distance & pace to prevent injury

Change your distance, speed & terrain and help prevent injury. 

It sounds like an obvious thing to say but many recreational runners don't actually do this. We all fall into a routine of a set route perhaps to or from work or a set group of friends who like to play it safe and as a result, we end up recreating the same run week in, week out. 

Inevitably this will mean that you will be loading each stride in the same way and this in turn can lead to damage. However, if you change things about a bit you are less likely to end up with this problem . 

Try doing a shorter run but a bit faster, if you always road run, try an off road route or if you have the chance, if you run with a group pursued them to do try something a bit different. You might even discover you like it more!  r

With thanks to

FLUCTUATIONS IN STRIKE INDEX AND SPATIOTEMPORAL PARAMETERS IN PREVIOUSLY INJURED VS UNINJURED RUNNERS
R Mann, K Meijer, L Malisoux, R Brunner, A Urhausen, C Nuehrenboerger, D Theisen
Br J Sports Med 2014;48:632-633 doi:10.1136/bjsports-2014-093494.196
Abstracts from the IOC World Conference on Prevention of Injury & Illness in Sport, Monaco 2014