Should You Run on It?

Judgment calls are a big part of being a runner. You’re always weighing a seemingly endless number of issues in trying to answer some basic questions, such as how far, how fast, and when and where to run. If you’re injured, there’s an even more basic question to consider: Should you run? Here’s where injuries can get the most tricky. If you don’t run on your injury, it’s not going to bother you. Push this logic to its extreme, and it’ll never bother you—never run, and I can guarantee you that you’ll never have a running injury.
The standard medical advice for all injuries used to be: Don’t run for two weeks. If it bothers you when you start again, take another two weeks off, and keep doing so until you’re better. That’s not very helpful advice for most running injuries. If all runners stopped running every time they got a little ache or pain, some of them would almost never run!
What you want to know is how to finesse your ache or pain so that you can keep running without doing more damage. After all, a little knot in your calf that loosens up after 10 minutes of easy running is a lot different from an aching hip that makes you limp around the office, and then only gets worse when you try to run on it. How much and whether you should run with your injury depends on how it feels not only when you run, but also the rest of the day.