Maybe going faster and longer didn't concern you much when you first laced up your Nikes. Matching your shorts and your T-shirt, and trying not to look like a fool out on the road were worries enough. Now though, you've got a nifty watch with lots of buttons and timing options to fuss with while you zoom over the asphalt, and maybe a training log with personal bests faithfully noted. Hopefully you've got a few slightly worn out 10k T-shirts, so everyone can tell you're a "real" runner.

So, if you've managed to outrun weakness, laziness and lack of confidence, why can't you outpace your ever lengthening list of nagging injuries? The shin splints that plagued you in the first weeks were replaced by Achilles tendinitis, which gave way to knee pain. That went away, but now you've got a groin pull... and so it continues. Each perpetually injured runner's story varies slightly, but the basic course of events remains the same: you train too hard, become injured, don't allow enough time for healing, and in the end remain injured and/or incur a new injury from over-training. For a different outcome, you need to try a different approach.

Age old running wisdom has had generations of runners "training through the pain", the idea being that any pain that goes away once you're warmed up is not pain worth paying much attention to. The fear of losing conditioning, or worse, looking and feeling like a woose(or wuss, if you prefer), overrides any thoughts of taking time off to heal. Some coaches and veteran runners even believe that continuing to run with a mild stress injury can facilitate healing.

Despite the fact that injuries do sometimes heal with continued training, the fundamental concept behind the long standing practice is wrong. Actually, by the time you feel pain in a joint or tendon, you've probably been running with the injury for a couple of weeks. Muscle tissue will signal you quite quickly with pain when an injury happens, but tendons, ligaments and bones don't have as many nerves. So when a stress injury occurs in these tissues, you don't really feel anything until a cycle of inflammation and subsequent further injury to the tissue has been established. By this time, resting the tendon or joint is the only real remedy that will promote healing.

Of course, any pain that comes on suddenly, is accompanied by swelling or deformation of the joint or limb, or impaired circulation in the limb, is a sign of traumatic injury and warrants immediate medical attention.

For mild tendon pain, doctors often recommend rest of the injured part, periodic icing and perhaps regular gentle massage of the tendon and gentle stretching once most pain has subsided. NSAIDs are sometime recommended for pain, however there is some debate over whether these may inhibit healing, especially in stress fractures. Discuss all medications with your doctor.

Pain that seems to be in the bone, even if it is very mild, deserves further investigation. Stress fractures often don't cause a lot of discomfort A runner might feel a small tender bump on the shin bone or just above the ankle, for instance, but nothing more than that until the bone break is serious. Only a doctor can make the definitive diagnosis. Complete rest of the limb for several weeks is almost always recommended.

If your tendon or joint pain has already become chronic, medical advice from a practitioner familiar with sports injuries is your best bet for complete recovery. This way you'll know the full the extent of the injury. You may also receive advice on rehabilitative exercises. In some cases, you could find out you need surgical intervention to be completely pain free or prevent further injury. Most importantly, you need to know that you are not going to cause irreparable damage by continuing to train.

Once you're pain free, (if you're under a doctor's care, get the medical okay first) don't go back to your old routine. After all, your injury was a sign that some aspect of your regimen was not working for you. Evaluate your shoes, your diet, your physical condition to see if something could be improved. Then take an especially hard look at your workout intensity and schedule, this is likely where the problem lies.

Too commonly, the competitive edge that makes you a good runner good also makes you inclined to over train. But over-training that causes injury ultimately costs you workout time. When repetitive stress injuries become a regular problem, your new goal should be to train more consistently rather than training harder.

If you are returning from injury, scale back your work out. Begin with a routine that seems too easy, and stay with it for several weeks. The exact amount of time will depend upon your injury. When the time comes to increase your mileage or workout intensity, plan ahead how much you'll add and keep the increase minimal according to your age and fitness level. Then apply your enviable self discipline and stick to that schedule. You'll get ahead faster this way, in the long run.

So, back to that nagging pain--if you have to rest it for a bit, what will you do with all that time, and how will you keep your spirits up? No compassionate person would suggest that you abandon the disciplined habits that you've so carefully nurtured.

Cross training is the solution to the injury time-out dilemma. Find another sport, one that does not put as much stress on your legs and feet, to fill the void when you can't run. It's no surprise that swimming and biking are favorites among runners, hence the popularity of the triathlon as a competitive event. What ever your athletic pleasure, keeping your cardiovascular fitness level high is benefit enough to merit the effort of learning something new. But that's not the only good thing about cross training.

You'll also be working different muscles groups and therefore be building muscle strength balance. Balanced muscle strength is key to preventing more repetitive stress injuries. To that end, regular weight or resistance training should be part of your regular training regimen, even when your not injured.