If you’re feeling stiffness on your runs right now… you shouldn’t ignore this before race day
Our patients tell us this is exactly how it shows up.
You head out for a run and something just feels… off.
Not enough to stop. Not enough to scare you.
Just that annoying stiffness that takes a mile or two to loosen up.
So you brush it off.
You tell yourself it’s normal.
That your body just needs a better warm-up.
That it’ll go away once you get into the race.
And to be fair… you can still run.
That’s what makes it so easy to ignore.
But here’s the part most runners don’t think about…
When something feels tight or slightly painful and then “warms up,” it doesn’t mean it’s gone.
It usually means your body is compensating well enough to let you keep going.
And right now, that might feel like a win.
Especially with Ottawa Race Weekend right around the corner.
Our patients tell us they’ve been in this exact spot before a race.
They kept training through it. Maybe added more stretching. Maybe took an extra rest day here and there.
And it kind of helped.
But what they didn’t realize…
Was that every run was reinforcing the same underlying issue.
So when race day came, one of two things happened:
The stiffness showed up earlier than usual
Or it never “warmed up” at all
And suddenly the goal shifted from performing well… to just getting through it
That’s the part you don’t want to risk.
Because you didn’t sign up, train, and commit all this time just to hope your body holds up.
The truth is, this isn’t about whether you can run right now.
It’s about what your body is quietly dealing with every time you do.
There’s usually something underneath it: A joint not moving like it should. A muscle not doing its share. Something else picking up the slack
And your body is buying you time.
But not forever.
Our patients tell us the biggest mistake they made wasn’t training through pain…
It was waiting until it forced them to stop.
Because at that point, the timeline changes. Now it’s not about optimizing your race.
It’s about recovering from something that could’ve been handled earlier
And if you’ve tried the usual stuff already…
Stretching more, Foam rolling and Looking up exercises online.
You’ve probably noticed it doesn’t fully go away.
That’s because none of that is actually tied to why it’s happening in your running.
It’s just trying to manage symptoms.
Which is exactly why so many runners feel stuck in this cycle
What our patients tell us feels different is finally having a plan that connects everything back to their running.
Not random fixes.
But understanding what’s actually causing the stiffness… and what to do about it before it turns into something bigger.
Because we don’t stop at what you feel.
We figure out why it keeps showing up.
And this is what we call the root cause
Final Thought
If you’re a few weeks out from race day and something already feels off…
This is your window.
Not to shut things down. But to make sure you’re not lining yourself up for a race where you’re just hoping to get through it.