What is the longest hiatus you've had to take from running due to an injury?

I was unable to run for a little more than 2 years after an achilles injury I sustained finishing a 10K race where the pain came on at the two mile mark.

Depends on the type of injury. I had a late onset of osgood schlatter's that lasted a year, but got over runner's knee in a few weeks. If it's just a case of runner's knee, check out your shoes, look at whether your mileage climb was too steep, that kind of thing. If it's a muscle problem you can do rehab to strengthen it, if it's a bone problem (stress fracture or something of the sort) then rest/cross training (that doesn't hurt it) might be your only options.

You said you just finished your first marathon, so if that means you are a beginner runner, you may lack the bone density/muscle strength to be racing that distance right off the bat. Don't run on it if it hurts, testing how long you can run to see if its better will not help!

About 1.5 weeks or so. Most of my injuries have been from overuse....nothing serious, thank goodness. Good luck.

Worst was a couple weeks for runner's knee (stretching), ITBS (strengthening), and metatarsalgia (ice).

I ran 50-80mpw for five years in college, then 30-50mpw for 10 years, then ramped up to 50-70mpw for the marathon. Maybe the mileage increase did it. I firmly believe it was the marathon itself that did me in.

You may have TMS.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Divided-Mind-Epidemic-Disorders/dp/0061174300/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1332172405&sr=8-3

In fact, most long term running injuries are TMS. Which is why many runners never have injuries that last longer than a few weeks (it takes that long for the human body to heal), while others have career-ending injuries.

I myself suffered from never healing "running-injuries" for about 15 years. They all went away after I acknowledged that it was TMS and started treating the cause.

Thanks. I checked out TMS on Wikipedia and I'm not going to rule it out.

What turned out to be the cause of your TMS? I mean, what was the root cause? Was it really anger?

Well, according to Dr. Sarno, and the doctors who practice TMS, the condition is universal. All human beings suffer from it, at least after a certain age.

For some it's just a headache when stressed, for others it's a full blown migraine or fibromyalgia.

It boils down to emotional health - healthy mind in a healthy body. The people who suffer the worst symptoms of TMS (which is just a sugarcoated way of saying psychosomatic pain) have a certain personality type - perfectionists, hard on themselves. Paradoxically, this fits the personality type of a lot of runners.

The main idea is that the ego puts a lot of pressure on the id (your inner child), which in turn reacts with rage. The attempt by the ego to supress the rage causes the pain.

It's a subconscious and primitve interaction between different layers of our brain.

Read "The Divided Mind" by Dr. Sarno. Out of all his books, I found this one to be the most enlightening, because it is written by 7 different doctors, some of whom are extremely intelligent and eloquent writers.

There are many eye-opening passages in the book, but one of the most memorable is one discussing the increased incidence of high-blood pressure in people who suppress their rage. At first it's a consciouss decision, but after years of repetition it becomes unconscious. They no longer feel anger/rage like a normal person would.

However, the rage still gets generated, and because the stress is not released it builds up in the brain - which in turn causes physical symptoms.

Please read it with an open mind. I have not yet posted my Amazon review of the books, but I'll say this:

Aknowledging that it's even POSSIBLE that you may have TMS is a hard pill to swallow.

1)It means, for one thing, that you are not fully in control of your own brain, which is unsettling (again, Dr. Sarno explains that this is just a knee-jerk reaction, as TMS is universal, and part of the human condition. It's just how the different lairs of our mind interact).

2)It means that there is no quick fix, and nobody can help you. Only you can help yourself.

3)It seems far fetched, and unlikely, and the realm of pseudo-science. The fact that it's not accepted by modern mainstream medicine doesn't help.

However, please consider the stakes with an open mind. It's your life, and your quality of life. Suppose the premise is wrong - you just wasted $5 on a book, and a day of reading.

Suppose it is correct - and as someone who has almost fully recovered from it, I can only cringe at the thought of countless people who will never even hear about TMS - and you ignore the diagnosis; well, then you will be in chronic pain for the rest of your life.

Here is the link that finally convinced me to try reading the book. Read the comments after the article as well.

http://aaroniba.net/articles/tmp/how-i-cured-my-rsi-pain.html

And here is a link to Harvard University's RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) Action group. Some Harvard students who recovered feel so strongly about it, that they now give lectures on the subject.

http://www.rsi.deas.harvard.edu/mb_what_is.html

At the very least, it's worth being open minded and reading a book on the subject.

One last thing: the pain of TMS "moves" when being actively challenged whether through meditation or psychotherapy. Your knee may suddenly be ok, but now your back will hurt for no reason, etc. That's one way to figure out that it truely is.

That is all completely wacko. It's much more likely that your knee injury is a result of poor mechanics and/or scar tissue. Did you injure your patellar tendon (between kneecap and shinbone) or the kneecap itself?

Taking time off won't fix poor mechanics. Doing hip strength exercises, especially external rotators and abductors, will help. See a PT who knows about running injuries. If you are up for a long read, see this:

http://runningwritings.blogspot.com/2012/03/injury-series-uncovering-role-of-hip.html

It's quite common for patellofemoral pain to persist for many weeks or months--this isn't because you have daddy issues, it's because you have a biomechanical fault.

About 9 weeks with a small calf tear. Six weeks with Achilles tendonitis in both legs. Three weeks each for ITBS in right and then left leg a year later.