Distance running is a fun way to learn Anatomy, and Latin :)
A part of the fun is of course taken away by the fact that these lessons come packaged in pain. A few years ago, after what seemed like a regular run my right heel started hurting. I thought I had stepped on a sharp stone, or that I had twisted my heel. After many unsuccessful sessions of massages, rubbing in balms and oils (esp. Murivenna), I looked up the symptoms on the web and discovered "Plantar Fasciitis". It has nothing to do with plantations of fascists. This is simply latin for inflamed feet - plantar (sole of the foot) and fascia (band/sheath of tissue) with -itis (inflammation). For some reason this painful condition is also called "policeman's heel".
Another term you hear among the latinised running communities is "IT Band Injury". Anybody can get this injury - not just software engineers or musicians - because IT here stands for Ilio-Tibial. And the band here refers to a tendon that stretches along the length of the longest bones in your body - the tibia. An injury of this connective tissue gives you IT Band Syndrome (ITBS) - an aching or sharp pain on the outside of your knee or hip. Once again massages are not of much help and what worked in my case was simple, consistent exercises - toe-curls, rolls, stretches.
Last Sunday, 22 Feb., 2026, we had the New Delhi Marathon (NDM). This year's event was sponsored by Cognizant and attracted over 30,000 participants in four events: Full Marathon (42 km), Half Marathon (21 km), 10km and 5km races. I participated in my usual Half Marathon. It was a well organised event with plenty of water-stations, good signages, clean toilets, decent food (hot chole-kulche!), band-baaja, and nicely spaced out dispersals (no clash with the 5km folks walking abreast). I even managed to meet an old college friend from Trivandrum after 36 years, and in getting back to the sub 2-hour timing (1:58:22).
A day after the run I am now back to my Latin vocabulary. The new words are - Quadriceps and Iliopsoas - the two sets of muscles that seem to have developed Delayed Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). It is peculiar pain that makes the simple act of descending staircases particularly painful.
Quadriceps femoris is Latin for f'our-headed muscle of the femur'. The four heads are - Rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius and vastus medialis. Vastus is a Latin word meaning "vast," "immense," "huge," "enormous," or "monstrous", while rectus simply means "straight", "upright", or "direct". Straight and huge - the quadriceps are the largest muscle sets in the human body.
Is there a way to avoid this pain? If past experience is anything to go by, it is unprepared muscles that develop DOMS after a distance run. So would isolation exercise like leg extensions help? Let's see...
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REFERENCES & LINKS
- https://www.samsonphysicaltherapy.com/blog/why-the-front-of-your-thighs-hurt-after-running
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliopsoas
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadricep
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantar_fasciitishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantar_fasciitis
- https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21967-iliotibial-band-syndrome
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thonakal_Gopi
- https://www.uniindia.com/news/sports/sports-delhi-marathon-leads-spd18/3750206.html
- Timing - https://mysamay.in/event/info/4fbe9261-c999-4868-9a1e-acd64b0b79f8
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