How to avoid running injuries

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You're deep into training for that 10K run, but if you're going too hard, not warming up properly or wearing the wrong pair of shoes, you could be left at the sidelines on race day. Cory-Ann Freeman, a certified athletic therapist who has participated in marathons herself, explains how to avoid running injuries.

What are the causes of common injuries?

Typically it's too much too soon. It's not being properly trained, it's not being prepared, it's not having the proper shoes.

For people who are gearing up for a 10K race, what would you recommend? What is a good schedule to set up?

You're not going to want to go over the distance you need to do if it's the first time you're doing it. First-time runners are going to experience something totally different from people who have been doing it for a while. [You should be]running three to five times a week, no more than two days in a row. If you do hard days back to back and you're taxing the muscles, you're more likely to injure yourself. If you go hard and you make every day count and you do one day on, one day off, it's (a) much more efficient and you're (b) allowing for recovery time.

Especially in those first few weeks of training, running can leave your muscles feeling pretty sore. At what point should you be worried about that kind of pain you feel?

There's a difference between good pain and bad pain. The good pain is typically the uncomfortable soreness that starts anywhere from 24 to 48 hours afterwards and it only lasts a couple of days. That's usually referred to as DOM - delayed onset muscle soreness. It's that, "Ow, it hurts to walk up the stairs" but you know, over the course of the next couple of days, it diminishes and you're fine.

The bad pain is the pain that increases with movement. It starts as soon as you start a run and it continues and it gets worse as you do activity - the pain that's sharp and shooting and stabbing and just doesn't get better and there's no good time and no bad time and it just constantly hurts.

What is the best way to treat that minor pain, where you don't need to see a doctor but you are uncomfortable?

If it's DOM, you can reduce that with proper nutrition. You have a 45-minute-to-60-minute window after a workout to replenish your energy sources. That needs to be a combination of proteins and carbohydrates that will help repair the muscle tissue.

Hydration is a big thing. A big mistake that new runners make is that they think hydration is something they can do the day before or a couple of days before, and it's not. It's one of those changes you have to make to your life, to start walking around with a water bottle.

There are a lot of mixed messages out there about stretching and when you should do it, what type you should do. Can you clear any of that up?

I'm not going to say that what I know is the best; everybody has a different perspective, idea of what works best. Ideally it's a light, five-minute warm-up and then you do an active stretch. So you're not standing there and stretching, but you're doing walking lunges or you're doing kick-ups.

But realistically for running, if you start off at a slower than normal pace and just get comfortable and wait until your body eases into it, [that works]

And what kind of stretching do you do after you run?

Typical stretching is static stretching and that's where you're standing still and leaning against the wall and you're stretching over your calves or your hamstrings ... or you pull your ankle to your butt and you stretch your quads.

If you are feeling sore, is it good to push yourself the next day to go out and run anyway ... just to maintain that consistency in your training?

That's a slippery slope because, again, you have to determine if it's just muscle soreness or muscle pain. Muscle pain is when you have a problem - it's when you've injured something. Muscle soreness is when you've had a really good training session the night before and your legs are tired and stiff and sore from that, but you could still give it a go. If you're just starting running, I would say play it on the cautious side and go every other day.