L Lower Leg, Achilles Tendonitis
2009-10-25 – 2010-11-15
Grade: 4
A pretty insignificant fall towards the end of a Red course in late Oct 09 had me limping quite badly by the time I finished.
A half marathon in Busse Woods at Thanksgiving was the final straw that had me in a doctors office the next week. Good job I work there because I called the director to make sure I got an appointment quickly. Dr Hutchinson is the top Sports Medicine physician at UIC so when he told me I was getting shut down for a month I knew he meant well. However wearing one of those knee high braces for a month in a Chicago winter is no fun.
The New Year saw the boot being packed up and sent to a far flung corner of a closet and I got back into as much running as anyone can do in January in Chicago.
Things were going pretty well so at the last minute I entered the Snowgaine in Mississippi Palisades Park in February. After slogging through the 3 hour individual event I realized I had some more work to do. A lot more. 2 weeks later this was confirmed at SLOC's Gateway Grunt. Maybe that was why I agreed to do a 6 hour rogaine in April. Maybe it was because of who was going to be my partner? :-)
By this time I'd been offered a ticket to Rome to help a friend through the marathon, which I accepted with my eyes closed because otherwise I'd have already been hitting myself. It was 2 weeks after SLOC, which by itself was way more running than I'd done all year. You won't see any mention of being smart here.
So Rome, Fantastic. Rome marathon, great race, all the scenery and architecture you'd expect. Me, apparently I was a half marathon runner that day. I did finish it running though, sort of. Had to really. There was a party to go to and it was 2 blocks from the finish line!
Two weeks later and I can climb both up, and down, stairs again and it's time for the previously mentioned rogaine in Black River Falls, WI. Anyone picturing a training graph that spikes every 2 weeks?
Actually I was up for this and traveled up the night before to be fully rested. This was nearly derailed when Linear Ice, the other half of 'Gaine Go Braugh, and I found a brew pub where you entered through the brewery. 2 beers later it's decision time. Lucky we found the exit and eventually a 'restaurant' to carbo load in. The race itself was fun and we were going great until we took on that one control too far. During what must have been a 45 minute sprint to beat the deadline I had Rome flashbacks and a serious energy crash. Thank you for getting us home before we lost all our points Erin.
So now it's April and I get to ease off a bit. Regular stuff until early June and the Madison to Chicago relay. I was putting up with some discomfort throughout those 2 months but only when I ran. Duh! After the relay things went downhill real fast and another visit with Dr Hutchinson resulted in an MRI, which found a tear in my left achilles. Surgery was booked for July 13th and then I realized I had Cubs tickets for the 16th and what was to be my first adventure race on the 18th. Would rescheduling the surgery be silly? Probably, but I tried anyway. Luckily he wouldn't let me so I got a replacement for the race and crutches for the baseball. It's the Cubs after all, and we won!
So by now I've got the message and had decided to listen to everything I was told, and to do what I was told as well. There's some great physical therapists at UIC and I was set up with Craig who specializes in tendons. I was told it would be 8 weeks before I started running but the little guy with horns on my left shoulder said "lets do it in 6." And at the end of August I did. 5 minutes walking on a treadmill for a warm-up followed by 2 minutes 'running.' I've got to tell you that felt goood.
The plan from there was to run every second day, starting with a 2 minute run, and then increasing by a minute each time. If you think it was good on a treadmill it was positively ecstatic to be on a trail again. I have a trailhead a quarter mile from my house so walking there was the warm-up and then I could start running, followed what felt like immediately turning round to go back and then stopping. Gutting. But still good.
September and October are behind me now and the last trail run was for 50 minutes. Don't do any math with the number of runs @ 1 minute increases and how that gets me to 50 mins already. I've got a good endurance base and have been doing all the exercises along with strength training so I'm feeling good but listening to my body. There's been a couple of times it told me to back off, so I did and I'm thankful. I've also done 2 O meets, last week was an Orange and today was a Green. It felt great. Still cautious over rough ground but no twinges, no pain afterwards.
It's also a year since it all started so that's cool too. Although I've been told part of the cause is wear and tear from running over rough ground for many years. Mmmm...OK. Guess a guy's got to do what a guy's got to do. :-)
Next up is to keep increasing (slowly) the run distances until I'm not even thinking about it any more. Then look out rogaine's. Are you ready Erin?