Still Hurting Post Napa

Since the Napa Marathon, I've had a stubborn pain in my left foot that has not yet healed. I have run perhaps a total of 10 miles in the last 11 days and most of those were pretty uncomfortable. It's not yet driving me crazy but it is making me a little impatient. Right after I finished Napa, my left foot was so painful I could not walk a single step. I was afraid I had broken a bone or caused a serious fracture. However, there were no specific spots or points of pain just a general soreness and some swelling on the bottom of my foot. After a few days of NSAIDs, ice, compression and elevation, the swelling died down quite a lot and I was able to resume walking somewhat normally. Running however still caused pain on my heel and on the outer part of the ankle and twisting my foot in certain directions is uncomfortable. 

Thankfully, I can always ask my in-laws for expert medical advice and their opinion/unofficial diagnosis is just general inflammation of the muscles and tendons from running 26.2 miles downhill on a cambered road. I probably have a spot of tendonitis and irritation of the peroneal tendons. It seems to make sense because I only feel pain now when my foot is twisted and I am stretching the outside of my foot/ankle. The root cause of this injury is probably a combination of tight calf muscles and weakness caused by an ankle turn on a trail run a few months ago. It seems to be getting better each day so hopefully I will be hitting the trails and roads again soon. 

The most disappointing aspect of my prolonged layoff after Napa is having to pull out of a treadmill 100K relay race that takes place tomorrow. I was on a very strong team that probably could have pulled out the win and gotten a $10,000 prize. However I knew by Tuesday that there was no way I could run 20K strongly on Friday and it would be better to look for a replacement rather than wait to see if I could start on Friday. So I gave up my spot and thankfully found a great and enthusiastic substitute so that at least the rest of my team could still compete. I feel bad for letting down my teammates, plus the event sounded quite fun and interesting but I decided if I couldn't run one mile without discomfort there's no way I should do the race. 

So peroneal tendons, get better soon. I've got many more goals to accomplish and I can't do it without you!