Thursday, March 6, 2014

From the department of sensible decisions

Some facts:

1. I woke up on Monday with pain - everything sore to the touch - across the top of my right foot near the outer toes. And a line of pain that follows some muscle or tendon all the way down my outer lower leg. And a tight calf and ITB. I suspect extensor tendonitis. Bizarre. Bodies are like voodoo. (Maybe it is time to invest in that gait analysis after all.)
2. The pain continued till Wednesday so I haven't run since Sunday. I type this sitting on the floor and foam-rolling while having my morning coffee. Except I don't know what portion of me to foam-roll first. I'm going to try running later today.
3. My right foot is not the foot that I semi-sprained on Sunday while running to the end point of the 2XU half marathon to meet my dad. That's my left one. I am supremely sprain-prone (despite a lifetime of desperate stability exercises). If there is a hole in the pavement, my ankles are guaranteed to find it.
4. On Sunday I had my last successful run: 13 easy km to and around the 2XU end point...and then went home and hauled my husband out of the house to run 5 tempo km with me, which hurt and was hot but went by much faster with him than without.
5. Here is a picture of me with SuperDad, who ran the 2XU half. Remember how my parents are my running role models? When I am 58 I want to still be running, too.


6. Unfortunately I am supposed to race a 5K this Saturday (don't know if that's happening, gah) and a half marathon in late April (probably still happening; I have six weeks to train for it).
7. I leave you with a picture of a Trojan Horse.

YES THAT IS A HORSE ON WHEELS.
It was just sitting along the 2XU route, about 2km from the finish. At this point I was running with a friend for the last few Ks, trying to drag her to the finish line in one piece, and I just had to run across the road and take this photo. I didn't want to get too close though, just in case hordes with swords came swarming out of its belly.
I'm pretty sure it's just left over from Chinese New Year though. I hope.

Update: Thanks guys! I ran four tentative km this morning and the foot + leg were fine, if a little tight. I'm going to keep on foam rolling, icing, and stretching prophylactically, and Saturday afternoon 5K will probably be all right. Phew.

After my run, I also did a 'HardCore' class at the gym, which seemed to be a general bootcamp-style sort of fitness class that included lots of agility exercises like box jumps and burpees, and core exercises like planks. Hilariously, the warm-up consisted of running in circles around the studio for five minutes. It wasn't a terrible class - I probably need to be doing some of those things anyway -  but not my cup of tea; I don't really have patience for general fitness classes and I would like to be doing runner-specific things for runner-specific reasons.


11 comments:

  1. Wow, that sounds really odd! I can't imagine what it could be! Did you try icing it?

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    1. I tried ice, I tried foam rolling, I tried Googling, and came back with a self diagnosis of tendinitis. Fortunately the treatment was icing, rolling, and stretching.

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  2. Oh no. Feel better, friend. And parents do indeed make the best role models. When I was a kid, my parents were always taking turns getting out to run. Well, they called it jogging. I guess it was a generational thing.

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    1. Your parents ran, too? Mine still call it jogging; I'm trying to get them to switch to running because jogging is hazardous to your health.

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  3. I hope that whatever is the problem sorts itself out really quickly and you're back running before you know it.
    By the way your Dad's awesome. Anyone who's running at his age is awesome. Only a few more years and I'll be just as awesome.

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    1. Fortunately it did. Unfortunately I'm not getting any younger and will have to do lots of prophylactic stretching and rolling from now on!
      One of my friends is roughly as awesome as you and her running just keeps improving. As you get more awesome you get smarter about training.

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  4. Roll it roll it stretch it stretch it!! That is pretty much my new mantra.

    Glad you were able to get some running in pain-free!

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    1. Haha, thanks! 'Roll roll it stretch it stretch it' sounds like the start to a Daft Punk song... :)

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  5. Hi! May I find out what's prophylactic stretching pls?

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    1. Any stretching you do to prevent or ward off injury! For me, that's a lot of hip flexor stretching and a lot of calf stretching (I have very tight calves).

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  6. Functional movement is really useful to runners. Especially runners who mostly...run. ;-) Your endurance is good, but those kinds of activities can help build power, and force you to work your stabilizing muscles more. <--- Key for runners anyway. :)

    I'm behind, but glad this got sorted. Maybe every race week should start this way for you. ;-)

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