Injured

Injured, and quite depressed about it.

At the risk of self-diagnosing, I’m going to shoot ahead and self-diagnose (in a long winded way synonymous with blog posting types and those that need a forum for their rants). I’ve pulled a muscle (please don’t let it be a tendon – although it does feel like one) that runs over your arch and along the foot. I think it all stems from the under-foot bruising I had after the stone I hit a few weeks ago. You may recall me waxing lyrical about my barefoot shoes and the advantages of the feedback from the road. Well, this feedback is great in healthy strong feet – your gait is forced into an efficient state that the human form can support with its web of muscles, tendons, and such that have evolved over the millennia. The problem is when you are carrying an injury. That injury pain may be more than the road feedback – so I think my gait morphed into a stride that minimised a mixture of (1) road feedback and (2) injury pain. So now I was running with a form that strained muscles unused to the stresses of road running and un-cushioned from the repetitive impacts from the road.

Looking back, I think I pretended my bruising wasn’t sore – I was desperate to continue training for a number of reasons (I was excited about Paris; the Cork to Cobh race was coming up; and I had just joined a running club in which I was eager to impress).  By forcing the running on the morning after I hit that stone, I strained that lateral tendon on the bruised foot, and 2 weeks on, while trying to minimise impact on (1) my bruising and (2) my ankle (both of which are on the outside of my foot), I’ve managed to strain a muscle on the inside of my foot over the arch. It feels stupid now, I should have rested, but I was desperate to go out running and I felt it was worth the risk.

My foot swelled up something ridiculous after a run last Monday night. I’ve been icing it and resting it the best I can but I’ll just have to wait for the swelling to go down and haul my ass back into the physio. Time will tell as to the extent of time I’ll be out – I think best case scenario is 2 weeks.

I want to stay positive, but I’m ridiculously disappointed that I’ll miss the Cork to Cobh 15 mile race. I can ill afford the monetary punishment associated with injuries. But, more importantly (for me at least), there is also the physiological side – running is a major source of enjoyment now. It’s an outlet I feel I can control and my gut tells me I could be good at it. My work life is in the doldrums at the moment so it’s great to have this positive outlet in there.

Things aren’t all bad mind, myself and girlfriend have moved out into a cosy little house down a quiet avenue in Blackrock which we love. Amusingly, it’s all of 50 metres from the old railway line that I run around Mahon. Coincidence, I can assure you. The other positive – the Sunday market ; this was always going to fit nicely with a foodie.

So I’ll keep the spirits up, and if I’m out for long, I’ll take up yoga as a means of increasing flexibility. My flexibility has always been poor (comparable to an iron rod) and that can’t help with the staving off of the auld injuries.

Stay positive (a note to myself but you can do it too)

199 days to go