Mercy physical therapist has advice for participants

It’s July 30 and you’re competing at the annual Journal Jog at Black River Landing.

Maybe you’re going solo — or competing with a group of family and friends. No matter, the one thing no one wants to deal with is suffering an injury.

Anything from a hamstring pull, knee sprain or ankle twist can ruin what’s supposed to be a joyful day. Jodi Richardson, a physical therapist at Mercy, cautions those who plan on competing.

“Injury prevention isn’t a type of thing you do immediately,” she said.

“Training is one of the best ways to prevent an injury. But for the immediate race, you want to make sure to do a warm up before you go out and run. You definitely don’t want to go out and run cold. Anything that can get your heart rate up and muscles warmed up.”

Richardson has been in the physical therapy field for the past six years — and three years prior to that as a physical therapist aid. She earned her degree from the University of Findlay.

She always knew she wanted to do something to help people; her uncle is a nurse and mentioned physical therapy as a possibility.

“I wanted to make sure I liked the field before I went for my doctorate and so being an assistant, I realized that this is definitely the path for me,” Richardson said.

Even if one is an experienced runner—falling into a mindset of thinking you know everything can be dangerous.

One of the biggest mistakes Richardson said people make is doing too much at once.

“A lot of people don’t prepare for this kind of thing sometimes,” she added.

By Fuad Shalhout

“And they’ll just go out and think they can run however long even if they haven’t trained for it. That typically leads to injury.”

A couple common injuries Richardson said are:

• Iliotibial band syndrome • Achilles tendon An Iliotibial band syndrome, or IT band, is a painful condition in which connective tissue rubs against the thighbone, according to WebMD.

“A lot of runners will commonly injure their IT band,” Richardson said. “Stretching for the IT band is definitely a major thing. And an Achilles tendon is another common injury where people do too much too soon.