Hi, this is Debbie Boyles, coach at Mojo for Running, with podcast number 51, The Running Detective.

A little detective work will go a long way towards understanding injuries and preventing future

ones. I'll tell you the stories of several people and their injuries. I want you to see if you can

identify the one consistent, incredibly important thread.

I'll start with me.

I sustained an injury to my forefoot at the base of my big toe about 18 years ago.

To this day, I can't tell you the technical term for the injury because it was never diagnosed,

despite visits to two different podiatrists, a primary care

physician, an MRI, and x-rays. What I can tell you is that I missed a whole year of running,

just about breaking my heart. The point here is that I want to share how I became injured.

It wasn't the way you might expect. I did a long run of about 11 miles on a Sunday morning,

which at the time was one of my longest runs. That was long before I started doing marathons.

In fact, it was before I had even started doing half marathons. So later in the day, I worked in

the art with my husband, carving out a new flower bed. That's how I know exactly how long ago it was,

because I remember that we made that flower bed right after we moved in to this house,

which was in 1995. Anyway, he formed the outline of the bed with the hose, and it was my job

to cut the edge, to cut out the edge, the shape of the flower bed with the shovel while he did the heavier

labor of removing the grass in the middle. I'd stick the tip of the shovel into the ground

and then step up onto it with my right foot, stepping with all my weight onto the shovel

to use that to get the shovel down into the ground. And that would be because I've always

been a wimp as far as upper body strength and that was really the only way I could do it.

I did this over and over and over. It didn't hurt at all, or I would have stopped.

...