Monday: 4.6 miles (6:43); Went to Nashville Running Company to see Chris Scoma for a free injury screening. He said my back was on lockdown on the right side, which is causing a lot of issues with my nerves. He didn't say much about the achilles because he felt everything correlated to my back issues. I'll probably go in for a visit on fall break
Tuesday: 6.4 miles (6:49)
Wednesday: Went to Middle Tennessee Spine and Joint to get a different perspective on my issues. I saw Elizabeth Hicks, who felt that I have some weak glutes and tight hip flexors on my right side, which is causing too much pronation with my right foot. I've noticed for years that my right foot has had issues, while my left foot has a pretty decent footstrike. The hip/glute issue was most evident when I was asked to do a one-legged squat with both legs. I had perfect form on my left but with my right, my knee collapsed inward after going down a few degrees. The collapsing knee results in a collapsing foot. I got some ART on my back and some Graston on my achilles. I've heard good things about Graston with tendon injuries, so hopefully it will help out. It was definitely a painful experience; .1 miles. Achilles hurt way too much. Dr. Hicks said there would be increased inflammation, so I stopped the run.
Thursday: 1.6 miles (7:23). Had a lot of tension and pulling on my heel/achilles. Maybe I could have gone further, but I wanted to play it safe.
Friday: .6 miles (7:15) Too much achilles pain. Hoping this is still a result from the Graston, instead of the injury becoming worse; 4.6 miles (6:54) I was surprised I was able to manage this. Ran pain free until about three miles, then the last couple of minutes, it got to the point where I knew I needed to stop. I heated before I ran, so maybe that helped things out. Found a killer knot in my posterior tibialis, so I spent a ton of time rolling and massaging it. Knots there can refer pain to the achilles, so hopefully it loosens things up.
Saturday: 3.4 miles (6:50)
Sunday: 5.3 miles (6:34)
Week Total= 26.5 miles. Lowest week in a very long time. It felt like things were getting better but I couldn't get out there as much as I wanted to. The first Graston session set me back for a couple of days but hopefully it will speed up my return. It was frustrating seeing so many fast times at Chicago, along with the USA 10 Mile Championships, while I sit on the disabled list. I'm hoping I can knock this out within 1-2 more weeks and hopefully find a marathon in early/mid January. I need to find some good exercises for my hips/glutes to get things more aligned. Also started a supplement called Cissus. I've heard mixed things on it but I figured I would at least give it a shot.
Hope you can recover from this quickly. Just thought I would share this article with some good info. about achilles tendonitis...maybe it can be helpful for you - http://runningwritings.blogspot.com/2011/08/injury-series-eccentric-exercise-and.html
ReplyDeleteThanks for the article. I love that guy's blog. He has so much good injury and training stuff on there.
ReplyDeleteScott,
ReplyDeleteI have followed your blog for a long time. I am a physician, 60 mpw runner, and 1:29 half marathoner. I had achilles tendonitis twice (well, maybe once with a relapse when it was almost gone.) It took almost 5 months to resolve fully though I ran well during much of that time. I think what finally allowed it to heal was a process where I added total rest days(no running anyway) while going up on the milage per run to keep fit. Instead of doing 5-6 mile easy base runs, I would run 8-10 miles per run and a long run of 16 -18 but take a day off between almost all runs. I did some spinning and strength work at the ymca on non-running days to keep for going nuts(avoiding anything that strained the achilles). As you know,tendons heal very slowly. Once inflammed / injured, I think there is a rate of healing and a rate of damage / re-injury incurred while running. My idea is that you want to preserve your training effect as much as possible while minimizing re-injury. Your 3-5 mile second runs of the day might be working against you in this regard. Please be careful with the achilles. If it ruptures, it could essentially be a "career ender" for a person at your level.
Best of luck,
Steve T.
Thanks for the tips. I frequently get little aches and pains that will go away after a few days, so I was hoping the achilles would be one of those. Last week, I realized that it was hanging around for a while and a December marathon was out of the question, so I backed off/ended the run whenever it became uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteIn college, I would have been slaving myself on the elliptical but with how life is now, if I can't run, I just spend my extra free time doing things I enjoy.
The second runs probably overdid it. I thought I would be fine but I probably created too much inflammation the first one, which really put stress on it the second run. It's actually getting a lot better, so hopefully I'll be back soon. Hope your running is going well!
I bet you won't guess what muscle in your body is the #1 muscle that eliminates joint and back pain, anxiety and excessive fat.
ReplyDeleteThis "hidden primal muscle" in your body will boost your energy, immune system, sexual energy, strength and athletic power when unlocked.