"Everyone tells you to listen to your body, but what are you supposed to listen to?"Turns out it’s not so obvious.
Deena Kastor, the American record holder for the marathon, interprets the advice selectively.
“Running isn’t always comfortable,” she said. “I remember running through a lot of discomfort and pain.”
And, Ms. Kastor added, she also runs when she does not feel like it.
“So many times the alarm goes off in the morning and you tell yourself you are too tired,” she said. “There are times when you are unmotivated, you don’t feel your best and most accomplished.”
But if you ignore those messages from your body and just go out and run or do your sport, she said, “those are the days when we have the most pride.”
“The trick in listening to your body is to know what you can run through,” she said. “If you have a sharp pain you should take care of it.”
So does listening to your body mean learning to understand the difference between a pain that signals a serious injury and one that can be ignored? And if it does, why do athletes like Ms. Kastor become seriously injured, anyway?
Last year she broke her foot three miles into the marathon at the Beijing Olympics. In that same race, Paula Radcliffe, who holds the world record in the women’s marathon, ran less than her best because her training was interrupted by a stress fracture that had set her back for months.
These are America's best runners getting injured. The best runners I know personally are getting injured. Maybe for them, there's more on the line. For 66% of Americancs this is definitely not a problem as they don't exercise. Maybe this is a problem for less than 1% of the population that exercise too much.
Have you been injured in the last year from running?
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