# On Not Running While Injured


A few days ago I tumbled down some stairs and managed to bruise _both_ of my
knees. I’ve taken a break from running since then to prevent injuring myself
further. It's made me reflect on an injury earlier this summer where I
aggravated my knee through overtraining to the point of not being able to run on
it for a few weeks -- right before the
[Seattle marathon](/blog/2025/12/04/Race-Report-Seattle-Marathon-2025/).
Fortunately, I got back to normal before the race, but it seems like injury is
just a fact of training for me now.

Until recently, I'd been shockingly lucky in avoiding running injuries. I’ve
been consistently running for a little over a decade, and this summer was my
first “serious” incident of needing to take a break since I started. When I got
into running, I ran nearly every day for several years. This was unwise in
retrospect. Some combination of factors let me elude injury: being younger meant
faster recovery, my legs had fewer accumulated miles, and I wasn't running
anything longer than a 10k.

I run longer distances now, and am significantly faster, both of which increase
injury risk. To offset that, I also run less frequently -- only 3-4x / week. I
get a lot more enjoyment out of having a weekend long-run and shorter
intermittent weekday runs than running daily. Running daily _sounds_ more
intense (in a positive way), but I find it to be less desirable along with being
less sustainable. Rest lowers injury risk, and also prevents running from
getting “stale”.

I think that's why the injury breaks don't bother me as much as they might have
when I was earlier in my running career. Running is something I _get_ to do, not
something I have to do. While I still get rather frustrated at not being able to
do the hobby I enjoy, this is a hobby I still want to be enjoying over the next
10, 20, 30 years. So, optimizing for multi-decade sustainability over short-term
hotheaded push-through-it-ism seems like the wise choice.