How to be an injured runner

Happy Spring!

This week, we tackle a question every runner has asked themselves at some point in their journey… What do you do with yourself when you can’t run? Well, Anna is officially a pro and is coming through with some tips and tricks to get through a running hiatus.

While she’s giving out advice, Anna gives us some tips on how to prepare and fuel yourself while you’re travelling or life in general is a bit hectic.

 We’ll also take a look at some of your most unhinged running habits – and boy, were there some weird ones! We’ve crowned our favourite as this week’s Cheeky Lululemon Champion, so keep an ear out for that.

LINKS:

-   Check out our latest Substack, ‘The ‘good enough’ marathon diaries’.

-   Grab a Cheeky jumper for yourself here!

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts + Instagram, TikTok, Substack, Phoebe's Strava + Anna's Strava, and join our Strava community 🩵

Music produced by Hugh Raper & logo design by Michael Cotellessa. Podcast edited by Kiara Martin.

Transcript

Phoebe: 0:06

This episode is sponsored by Lululemon supporting cheeky runners every step of the way. Hello, Anna. Today we are talking about what to do if you are a runner who can't run. I'm then going to be getting Anna to help me with some nutrition struggles that I'm having because I need a serious intervention. and we're also going to award some extremely unhinged running hacks from our question of the week. but first of all, as always, we'll kick it off with our notable runs of the week and not give me your best running related activity this week. Okay, wait, what's TRX? What? There's a whole class of those. Okay. How many of our listeners do you think will have been there before, not including your parents? Really just on the street. Oh, uh oh. That is so fun. Oh, that's so nice. Are they hard? Are they like, it sounds like they're still like a hard workout though. Are you? Was she Go Mel? Yeah. I feel like, I don't know if I'd be able to keep up with my mom in a, in a strength class. Um. Cute. I'm getting a real, getting a real vision of Anna as a 70-year-old. Yeah. Your little local workout class into coffee. Oh, that's so nice. I'm going to give it to, I feel like off the back of last week where I was really sick. I have had a really nice week of being pretty much better. and especially like I've been up on the Gold Coast. I've been, actually, I haven't really been in Melbourne or I've been the Gold Coast and Sydney and The best part has been like the, post run swims, every run.'cause it's, both of them are so much hotter than, than Melbourne. Like a crazy amount hotter and more humid. And so the swims afterwards have been off chops. But the best run I'm gonna say was my session on Tuesday. Even though objectively it was not a good run. it was my first session back after being sick. And so I intended to take it easy. It was like eight by one K off, 400 jog. And I was like, okay, I am just gonna do the jogs at more like tempo pace. uh, the, sorry. Yeah. The efforts, the jogs, the jogs were not a tempo. No. But even the efforts were like far, far, far below tempo base for one K, yeah. but the good part was, it was at Centennial Park, so Rolling hills. It felt like that, honestly. it really made me think about how I feel like I'm wanna do an episode on this. I haven't quite figured out what my perspective is on it, but I feel like we're too, or I have become too obsessed with, finding perfect conditions for a session. And in Melbourne I feel like I'm very like, okay, what's the wind doing? Where's the flattest section? How can I plan out every little detail? What's the temperature Exactly. Exactly. Shoes, everything. Whereas traveling has very much forced me to like. Dismiss that a bit. Like whatever, just get the outcome, do the effort. And this felt like that, that like, it was so much hotter than I was used to. it was hillier than I'm used to like, compared to the track. definitely a bit slower. but I was like, who cares the effort's there. And I did it with our friend Estelle, um, STB, which is so nice.'cause we just had, we just literally chatted the entire session. and then jogged back, did my cool down back to Bronte, ran into friends on the way down to Bronte, went for a swim. It was really nice. It was a pretty, pretty dreamy run. Yeah. what was your worst running related activity? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, which is the context there is, Anna works in infectious disease research. Yes. Yeah. Mm. Did you? You are like, get out of it. Yeah. Yeah. You did message me. You did message me at one point being like, I've been trying to encourage him to stay in his bedroom about Alas he is out and about. He is. Oh, poor John. Is he feeling any better? Yeah. Okay. That's a good sign. I feel like it must be one of like the worst flu seasons. Like I reckon everyone I know has been sick and some people like so sick, like bedridden, you know? You know when it's like not just a virus, like it's like a flu and you're just like, yeah. Can you. Give us the hot take. Yeah. Really flu a Yes. I have friends who've been testing for influenza A and have been like unbelievably sick. oh gosh. Well, listeners, stay safe out there. Wash. Wash your hands. Have you got any, have you got any tips as an infectious disease researcher on how people can avoid these infectious diseases? Does that, is that definitely just like the number one tip? Yeah. Yeah. I do you? Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. I think I need to get better. I need to get better at that, before I eat washing my hands because I, I don't do that consistently at all. My worst is I'm so disappointed with myself in that I think I used to have such great heat tolerance, growing up in Queensland, even living in Sydney, and I can't tell you, I'm like pathetic now with anything that's not Melbourne temperatures. Yeah. I'm so bad. I like it feels good. Yeah. No, but I still like how it feels I like feeling a bit sweaty, but I, it's more that like my body can't hack anymore. Like I've just been so it has been so exhausting running in heat. Mm, yeah. That's true. Yeah, that is true. Actually that could be playing into it. I've just been noticing my heart rate's a bit high on runs, which it always is when I come up to Queensland. Um, definitely. But you're right, that actually could be playing. Do you know something crazy that I found out? This is a, just a allow me a brief diversion from the agenda. Crazy that I am. I, and it's'cause I haven't seen you all week. It's a bit of a zoom catch up. It's with some friends listening in. I have, you know how my aura ring gives me a resilience score, so it gives me it's like an overall, it combines a whole heap of metrics and it's sort of like an overall health score. And last year my resilience used to always be really low. But this year I've done a really, I've done a really good job at, um, getting it up. Like it's often quite high now, and I've just been watching over the past, like six months. It goes through this, it just, it doesn't stay consistent. It's sort of just almost cycles in and out it'll be like up and then it'll slowly go back down and it'll slowly go back up and I can't really figure out, it doesn't exactly seem to be tracking to like how much I'm sleeping or anything like that. And then I realized, a few days ago that it basically exactly maps to my actual hormonal cycle. And in a really weird, so the day that, I ovulate, well the app says that it thinks I ovulated, it'll start dropping and it'll just go down, down, down, down, down for two weeks until I get my period. And then on the second day of my period. It starts picking up and it'll just keep picking up till I ovulate. And it's interesting because my cycle's not like amazingly regular, like it's a little bit of fluctuation, but I went back over the last few months, every single time it was like bang, on the day that I ovulate it starts going down. And I'm really like, I don't know if that means that, if it's generally picking up on maybe, you know, we kind of spoke about this literally last week that the hormones in the latter half of your cycle maybe aren't as conducive to strong recovery or if it's getting confused by the fact that like my body temperature's a little bit higher and it thinks that I'm more stressed and stuff. Because it does sometimes tell me that like, it's like, oh, are you sick? And I'm like, because it's like your temperature spiked and it's like, no, I literally just ovulated and my temperature's going up now. So like I don't think it's very good at understanding like women's cycles. Yeah. Yeah. I want, it must be, so I'm interested if anyone has an aura ring, let us know if you've experienced the same thing.'cause now I don't really trust that metric, so I'm like, all it's really reflecting right now is what stage of my cycl climb at, not anything else. Yes. Um, anyway, let's get let's get into our makeup of the week, which is how to be an injured runner. so whether that injury could be anything, a stress fracture, cranky, Achilles, it might just be a series of injuries that, feel like things kind of will never get back on track to where they were. But whatever it is, this episode is for everyone who has been told you can't run right now. It's for you, Anna. It's a masterclass with a Kham professor. A kham is. Here, here. Well said. No, absolutely not. Once I run a always runner, just joking. yes. I love this. I'm, and you've come up with a few, few different areas for people to focus on. It was funny when I was thinking about the actual question itself, kind of like what to do when you're an injured runner it made me think about what do all the people who aren't runners do? Like, well, I actually dunno. I'm like, what do you do if you don't run? Mm. Yeah. No, they must. No, no, no. They, they, people must, God, if there's anyone listening who doesn't run, let us know. No. Yeah. They must, I mean, I guess, I guess what fulfillment, because I feel like people, people definitely do lots of exercise. It's not running, but I don't know if this is just like us and I running high horses or if you, but I'm like, how do you, I don't know that you get as much fulfillment out of other exercises. Well, I guess I can kind of put it to you like. What are some of the other outlets that you found, and do you find them as fulfilling as running? Purpose almost? Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's true. The more, the deeper you get into it, almost the more you get from it for some of those things. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I've, yeah, that's really interesting. It's almost like running, when you're running a lot is obviously such a like. I mean, not in a bad way, but drain on like your time and energy and resources and it's almost like an opportunity. Give, reframe it as an opportunity to being like, cool, where do I wanna put that energy to now? Like, I can't run for the next whatever period of time, so what do I wanna do what el Not that you always have to like doing something else, but Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny, like I, I feel like we have the metric of exercise must like get you fitter, but even walking is just like, that's kind of giving your body what it needs, which is some movement. and so it's not even like you always need to be getting. Fitter all the time. It's like nice to just, yeah. Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, it's similar thing with when you're sick or something, it's just how can you give your body the energy it needs to heal, the extra energy that it needs to recover from that thing. so yeah, I love that with cross-training. It's, it's funny. I know what you mean. You put'em together, cross-training and rest, they are kind of different, but they both come under this banner of caring for your body in that time. Do you just say the right balance of cross-training and rest? Yeah. I think the other thing that can be really helpful, we've spoken about this a little bit, is the kind of like rehab and, and getting a plan piece. I feel like even with you, for so long, you're in this zone of I don't know what the problem is and so I don't really know what I can be doing to fix it. Or you had an idea and you'd sort of do that for a little while, but like wouldn't really help and then it makes such a difference when. You've now gone through this process of seeing a sports doctor, getting a an idea of a diagnosis at least, and, and doing that rehab, and making forcing the space to do it. Do you have any tips for how to build that habit muscle when it comes to rehab? Mm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What, how do you do them every day? Or like how often do you do yours or when do you, how often do you miss them? Fair. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. I like, yeah, I like what you said about do it while you're doing something else, that habit stacking.'cause the other thing I sometimes do when I am doing rehab exercises, I'll sometimes do them, like for the 10 minutes before a run. Something so like you're up and Adam anyway. And it generally can, if you are running, I should say, sorry, it's not, you're like, yeah, well wouldn't that be nice? Um, if you're like coming back from an injury or managing an eagle or something like, and that's a nice little slot, but otherwise you're so right. It's like if you're sitting down to watch a movie or something, watch a show. Show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm the opposite. I'll, I'll often start and two minutes and be like, I cannot be often doing this. Yeah. You know, with my calf stretches that I've been, I just, I do like one round of them 30 minutes a day. I do like one round of them and I'm like, honestly, that, that will do, but that's not good. Yeah. Mm. Yeah, totally. And you'll have different memories during the race'cause you'll be supporting cheering them on, you know? Oh yeah. Too excited cheering. Um, yeah, I think the final one that you noted, which I think is really good, is, looking at your own kind of perspective and mental health. I will say we haven't gone too deep into this. as in, we probably could have had 15 tips on this, but we did an episode last year called, injury therapy or something where we like really went deep on like how it impacts your mindset. but I do, I'm really keen to hear you talked to this because I feel like you have done a really good job, but this has been something you've definitely had to manage a lot over the last year and you've gotten quite good at being quite pragmatic around this. but yeah. What do you think is helpful when it comes to working on your own perspective? Really. Mm mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so, ah, it's such a good thing to say and I reckon it's so well timed because so many people would be training for like an event at Melbourne, and I feel like it's at this point in the block where you start becoming a bit fixated on the, like I was, yeah. Yeah. Or even like, I think I've been like trying to keep an eye on this with my mindset, but thinking a lot more about comparing it to previous blocks or starting to think I feel like I need to be doing more. I'm feeling quite good, so I should be doing more, to like get a better outcome. But like, I, that's always the danger zone for me. I know, because that's, that's when like chances are I push too hard and like get injured or burnt out. And so you, you are hearing you say that, I'm like, yeah. Completely agree. It's like being able to get to the start line, run the race, feel good. that is what we'll be, that's 99.9% of the enjoyment. Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm. Yeah, it's, it's actually, it's funny'cause it's the same mindset that you get in when you're not injured and you're like, this is that I'm never gonna be injured. And you get, like I started saying like, I feel like our brains aren't that good at envisioning, our current circumstances looking really different. And it's funny'cause like there aren't many other things in our lives. we probably live pretty stable, steady lives. We have had, we've both had the same jobs for years. You know, we've got our friendship group, we've got our like, everything's kind of pretty consistent. And the one massive thing that shifts is probably running. that's, don't you reckon? Yeah, exactly. No control. Like definitely you do a a bit, but not when you're injured. Like you can't, you can't just like work your way back into being uninjured. oh, well I feel like, I mean, I know you said that this has been something that you really struggled with from a mindset perspective, but even that, you can tell how much you've learned through this process. obviously it hasn't been easy and I'm sure there are plenty of times where you probably have been feeling like you could be doing a better job at it, but that's such amazing lessons to learn and I definitely feel like you're gonna carry that through now into your running. you'll always be able to have that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah, it is. It's like, yeah, it's like forced hardship on ourselves. Um, but it's honestly true that everyone thinks, that it's training for a marathon that builds resilience, but it's being injured when your friends are training for marathons that builds resilience. That is the true resilience building activity. So you are gonna come out the other side of the, yeah, in here. Strongest in here in your, in your heart and soul, and probably our arms after that session. Mm-hmm. No. Yeah, I,'cause I didn't put it in this child caption. It was from m So thank you M for submitting this one. it's such a fun one. And actually, Anna, I wanna ask it to you as well. what, and the question was what is your most unhinged running related hack slash habit? And they've been coming through thick and fast and there are some unhinged people out there. Oh yeah, no. Also lots of them that I thought, yes, I, I, I definitely do that. What would, what would be yours if you were gonna answer that question? Well, actually I could answer that one for you. I reckon because one of them we were just reading before and laughing about. I was laughing, man. You were like, that's not that bad. Which is, someone said that they, that they just wear run, they're running clothes like multiple times before washing them because they're like, saves water, saves time. And I think that is hilarious and very unhinged. Yeah. And you are like, yeah, I'll do that. No, yeah, I could. That is so funny. Do you put them back in the drawers between uses? Okay, that's dokey. Um, I can't, yeah. Oh, that is un hinged. Oh, that was like a punishment in o week in college was you had to try and eat a dry wheat b in like a minute or something. And I feel like there's like, so Without water. Without water and I feel like, yeah, I've been doing that. I had,'cause I was in Sydney this week, I was having sayos before my runs just dry plain sayos and I was having to chug them. Well that's not weird. Um, okay. Some of the other answers that we. We'll give a few honorable mentions and then we'll give a shout out'cause they're just too good. But jump on the Strava group and have a look. They're all great. Sammy said, okay, this is niche. I'm a high school teacher. When sport is rained out, I get my students to do my runner strength workout with me, win win because I get my workout done. And otherwise they just watch a movie. So instead we pump music and have a pretend gym session. They love it. That's genius. Oh yeah. Yeah. Sammy's absolutely nailing it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's honestly so smart. Um, true. And then that would be annoying'cause you'd need to take things off because I was about to say I couldn't sleep in a sports spot, but I often sleep in like running shorts or running clo, like just for comfort. Do you not? There you go. That's not the things you learn. Um, someone else said they did that, but they also, they sleep in their running. I'm not a big pajama fan. Yeah. It's not that comfy. I don't know why I'd sleep in pajamas when I could sleep in like a big t-shirt and runny shorts. That's like my classic combo Sean loves. okay. And then our winner. I thought this was the most unhinged. I love the visual here. It was Ali who said, I like taking maple syrup before my run, but who has time to get a spoon and measure it? I just tilt my head back and pour it into my mouth. Respect. That's efficient. That, I mean, that's pretty much a gel. That's pretty much smacking a gel. Yeah. Straight to the sauce. Like that is, yeah, I reckon. Yeah., I reckon we could try and design the most efficient morning. My issue is I need 20 minutes to get it, so that my body's ready to go to the bathroom before I run. No you won't. Yeah, that's, see, that's so risky. but risky business that, congratulations Ali, you received a gift from Lululemon. the other big thing going on in the Lululemon world and in the running world in general is obviously by the time this episode comes out, Sydney Marathon will have happened. which is so exciting. I unfortunately, neither of us are able to be there because we both, are interstate as a friend's wedding this weekend. But I was in Sydney this week for work. I actually haven't really told you about this yet. The energy in Sydney, the running energy in Sydney was crazy. Every sign, every sign, every bus stop, every, anything. It's all run. it's all running brands. Everyone's running everywhere. Everyone was sending me videos of Kipchoge like running around Sydney, which is just like the coolest thing ever. Every single, so many like events on, so many brands. It's so cool. I'm like, I'm so, so, so jealous. so many brands are doing such a great job, but none better than our friends at Lulu Lemon. It looks so cool. I saw some of the signs actually. They looked, they looked amazing. They looked so cool. That's such a nice idea. soon we'll be able to announce the details.'cause they have been planning some very, very, very special things for Melbourne. So if you are in Melbourne looking at Sydney and feeling so much FOMO in six weeks time, that'll be us. So don't you worry. Okay. Final. Yeah, I final kind of micro topic for today. I said at the top I needed, I need an intervention. okay. So my, I feel like I need to like come clean because I'm like obviously working really hard at having like improving my balance in how I approach my running this training block and rah. Anyway. My biggest failure, my biggest failure easily has been my nutrition in the sense that I'm, I think because the last few weeks, and also though for the next few weeks, I'm traveling a lot for like work and weddings and all sorts of things. but I don't, every single weekend I'm away for, well there's like five weekends in a row. In the middle of this block, I'm away, which means that if I'm even get coming back to Melbourne that Monday, I am like getting in late Sunday night. Like I'm not doing any meal prep. I'm so behind for the week and I feel like especially this week I've been traveling and I'm, so when I'm not in my home that it's even worse. And I feel like a few days this week I ended up like missing lunch or having it like hours late and then getting home from like meetings and so on quite late and ending up having, I had take out for dinner, honestly like three nights this week and it's Thursday and. It's okay. No, it's, but I feel like the takeout, I don't feel like in my takeout, I'm like hitting good macros or anything. so anyway, I need a bit of a reset and I wanted to ask you about it because I feel like last year, I mean you went and saw a dietician and got some like tips on how to do this when you're traveling. But if you were to kind bring me back to the basics. where do I go from here? And I haven't let you prep for this, sorry. Um, okay. Mm. Yeah. Mm. It really? Yeah. No, no, no. I can do that. No, I think you're right though. It's very low on my priority list. It's like I get to dinner time and I'm like, okay, what am I gonna do to have for dinner? Mm. Yeah, like be okay with that. Spending a bit extra you. Yeah. You are right. Like none of it's not great. Like I had Grilled Classic, which in my head I'm like, it's not that healthy. Like it's a burger and chips, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. I reckon the nights when it wasn't so good was like, I had one night where I didn't get home till like nine, and then I was trying to order and like everything's shut apart. I had tie, which is fine, and I'm sure I could've got, I just had pad cu, which is probably not the healthiest option. I'm sure I could have chosen a better option there, but yeah, it's not, I know what you mean. It's not like I, it's probably less that I'm like, oh, they're really unhealthy and it's more like I miss the, like, it doesn't feel as, yeah, I miss the like home cooking. My own meals and feeling like, okay, I know exactly no, not that I'm getting everything I need, but yeah. Yeah, that's actually a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's actually a really good idea. I've never thought of that. Um,'cause then you, then I don't need a like, and then often, yeah.'cause also if it's nine o'clock and I order Uber Eats, it doesn't get there till like 45 minutes later or whatever. It would be really nice to have that. okay. Some great strategies there. No, that really helps. That really helps. I think the main thing is you're so right about snacks. I actually feel like what I should have done and what I will do the second I get into Sydney next time is do you know how you can order groceries? and you can like order groceries through Uber Eats and, and don't do it generally'cause it's way more expensive, but it comes in 30 minutes and then you have it for your breakfast the next day.'cause that's the other thing is like, if I don't have breakfast in the apartment with me, then I like go for a run. I'm like, what do I, you know what I mean? You have to go out for breakfast. So I feel like I need to just like figure out what are my essentials that I just like order straight away. That will kind of be good stop gaps if I'm not able to like get the right meals in. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's a great saying. Did you just come up with that? Oh, I love that. Yeah. That is, you're completely right with that refu. okay. Thank you for that pep talk. That was very helpful. I hope that Okay. Okay. Hopefully anyone else listening who hasn't been on top of their nutrition also enjoyed that pep talk.'cause you're right. It, it can be really simple. It's just, it is more, it probably is more a, I just need to prioritize it thing. Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Carbs. Oh, it's all in the carbs. Yeah. Yum, yum. Yeah, it's a limited period of time. I need to. I agree. And so the listeners, if you are running, but I think that's it for this week. Um, good. What's on the menu? What's that? Oh, gorgeous. Okay. Well, enjoy. Um. I'm not sure yet. It'll be a surprise when I go downstairs. No, no. Well, I'm with mom and dad, so they'll be eating something. Join them. Bye. washing my hands because I, I don't do that consistently at all. Yeah, no way. That, that is so funny that that is your, that was what was cool as a kid. You, you're like, he, he.