So I have really dialed back the running for the past couple weeks. What happened is that I tweaked my right ankle … maybe as far back as the spring. I think I hyperextended by Achilles tendon training for the NJ marathon back in May. It didn’t really bother me at the time, but over the summer it seemed like if I ran more than three or four miles sometimes it would start hurting. This has been going … since May! So hoping it to help it heal I eased back on running in favor of more yoga, a little bit of the exercise bike and Crossfit. Finally I saw a podiatrist this week and she just gave me some stretches to do, but didn’t seem particularly concerned. Recommended orthotics for my supposed high arches on my right foot, although this has never been a problem before in the 10+ years I’ve been running. But anyway that gave me confidence to go out and do the summer streets fun run today that was beginning near my apartment at Foley Square, by City Hall. It was a run up Park Ave., which was closed to traffic as part of the summer streets program. Only about 80 people showed up, and it seemed like they were setting a slow pace… maybe people were planning on turning around and doing more mileage afterward? It is that time of year. But I was just planning on doing the 5-mile course, so I picked it up and … ended up in the lead. It was just me and this other guy, a Mexican runner who ran clutching a shirt. We turned at 72nd St. and ran into the park… I was in the lead, but it wasn’t really clear where the finish line was. So my visions of crossing finish line first were completely dashed! Oh well. (And really I couldn’t have been going that fast, maybe like 7:30s or 8s?).
But anyway it felt good that this injury layoff has not completely destroyed my training.
Let me swear by this for all the runners who read the blog:
As long as six or eight months ago, I did something to my left tendon. Exactly what, I don’t know; it wasn’t tendonitis, and it wasn’t plantar’s faciitis. But my tendon was painful every morning when I woke up, often felt like someone was jabbing a blade into it, and left my calf muscles so tight they felt like balls of iron wire fused into a mess. Yet I could run, and after about a mile of running, things loosened up and the pain went away. Only when I wasn’t running did the pain return, usually with a vengeance.
As I said, this endured for eight months, and running became more of a dreaded chore than a fun exercise. I was about to call a sports podiatrist– complete with $25 copay, six weeks’ wait time for an appointment, and a six-minute visit– when I tried the Bill Rodgers Running Center in Boston.
The clerk there, clearly a runner with many years experience, talked to me for five or 10 minutes about my pain. He examined my stance and determined my feet pronate. He examined my shoes. Then he gave me a one-quarter inch hard plastic heel orthotic. Told me to lace my shoe tightly, and it would stabilize my tendon, and solve my problem.
One week later, my pain was 75 percent gone.
I returned the next Sunday to thank the clerk, and when I mentioned I still had some pain, he told me to use a second insert– so my left heel is now a half-inch higher than my right. It felt a bit strange to walk like that at first, but within a few more days, my pain was 99 percent gone. Just now, I biked down to the local track and peeled off four miles like the champ I used to be. And the calf-muscle tightness is vanished.
All that for $8. All I had to do was find a veteran runner, listen to his advice, and try the simple solutions.
We were out there running the opposite direction. The city ought to close streets every weekend. What a great way to see the place again for the first time, and vary our otherwise pedestrian routines (pun intended). 🙂