This spring I ran my first marathon. I have been a long distance runner since I was 15 years old had attempted to train for the full marathon distance of 26.2 miles on multiple occasions but had never succeeded because chronic nagging injuries interrupted my training causing me to take months at a time off of running.

This winter, in the three months preceding the marathon I worked with Jen. Over the first 10 weeks she helped me to build strength and power which complimented my running and helped to prevent me from over training. Knowing that my left hamstring was prone to overuse injury, we also worked to strengthen the supporting muscles in my gluteus medius and minimus to help prevent injury. In the last few weeks prior to race day I began to have pain in my left calf, deep in the soleus muscle and tight peroneal muscles that added to the problem. It seemed to me likely that this could become an injury that would prevent me from running again. Jen and Chris worked together to evaluate my stride and analyze the mobility and movement patterns in my legs from my core to my hips to my knees, ankles and feet. Chris isolated each joint and the muscle groups that worked with it to help determine where my weaknesses were, where the muscles necessary to land a successful stride and absorb the impact of three times my body weight with each step, were not working in concert. Jen was then able to use this information to design functional exercises that continued to build strength, flexibility and endurance and challenged me but also helped recruit muscles that I was underutilizing in an attempt to train my me to move through each stride more optimally and thus to counteract some of the undue stress I was putting on my calf.

On race day I was still unsure of how my calf was going to hold up over 26.2 miles. But after the firs big hill at 7 miles I was feeling great and was confident that my calf would not prevent me from finishing this race. So I was able to settle in and “enjoy” the experience that I had waited years to be able to have. And just under 4 hours later I finished with a respectable time for a first marathon. And now? I’m looking forward a second one next year . . . .

Liza Lokich M.D.