Rehab

When it comes to rehabbing an injury, I am relentless. I am a relentless cross trainer and a relentless optimist. Once I realized I had a real injury and not just post marathon tweaks, I immediately cut out all the running and hopped into the pool and onto my stationary bike trainer. I did a couple days of just pool running, along with copious amounts of icing and self massage. When walking became a little easier I transitioned into cycling in addition to pool running. Although I like pool running, it's just not as aerobically challenging as real running and definitely does not work your leg muscles as much. I like to add cycling because it really works the legs and you can build up some lactic acid pain. However, neither of those activities can completely simulate running. Enter the Alter-G.

This amazing treadmill has been floating around elite training circles for a couple years now. You basically put on a pair of shorts and get zipped into a big air bag that happens to also contain a treadmill. The Alter-G weighs you and then will pump air into the bag to provide "lift" and reduce the weight and force on your legs and feet. This is perfect for someone coming back from a tendonitis problem. I believe in active recovery for soft tissue injuries and an important component of coming back from a tendon injury is strengthening. After a week and a half of no running and lots of icing, I felt ready to run easy and warm up my tendon and get it back to running strength. I started on Thursday at 90% body weight and slowly built up each day until today when I could run 6 miles at 100% body weight with no problems. Of course it can get quite boring running on a treadmill in a garage but I was so happy to be able to run again that the time flew by. Putting in a Metallica CD also helps.

And now, amazingly, I am ready to hit the trails again if only softly and slowly at first. Despite the two week layoff I did not get depressed about this injury. I willed myself to be as optimist and positive as humanly possible. After all the brain is incredibly powerful and placebo works 40% of the time. I believed that rolling a little plastic ball under my foot and rubbing my ankles with the back of a metal spoon would heal up my tendon and lo and behold it's healing.

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!