Injury and Self Diagnosis

In the Fall of 2010, I was probably in the best shape I've ever been in.  I had just finished a summer where I had completed a Half Ironman and an Olympic Tri, and I was gearing up for a Fall marathon.  The only thing that was bugging me was what felt like a bit of a bruise on my heel.  My self diagnosis was that it was just a bit of inflammation at the top of my heel where my running shoes hit the achilles.  It would go away.  

It didn't.  I ignored it for a while, but as I started to ramp up the long runs for what I thought would be a PR in the Philadelphia Marathon, the pain got worse.  I decided to rest it.  I took a week off and just cross trained.  When I went back to running it got worse.  Perversely, it felt fine on days when I rode the bike, putting lots of pressure on the achilles, but hurt when I ran, and worse, it hurt worse when I did nothing.  I was confused.  I tried taping it.  I tried just swimming.  I tried not running at all.  It was stubborn.  Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I abandoned the idea of a Fall marathon.  I also abandoned the idea of spring races, tri-or otherwise.  

I kept spinning, swimming, and occasionally running, but I was in a tailspin.  As a middle aged runner, any time an injury lingers like that, one worries that the end has arrived, and it will never heal.  

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, a training buddy started singing the praises of chi-running and the midfoot strike.  I was skeptical. Most importantly, I was scared to try it, because I thought it would further clobber my achilles.  Wouldn't running on your toes put extra stress on a tendon that was already inflamed??

Well, as my daughter would say, whatevs. . . I started pushing my hips forward (as suggested by Max in his earlier post), shortening my stride, leaning forward, and landing on my toes.  Much to my surprise, instead of getting worse, my achilles pain started to go away.  

Slowly, I realized that the inflammation was not starting at the Achilles insertion, but on the pad of my heel, and that getting rid of the heel strike was the cure.  

What a counterintuitive surprise.   More soon . . .