An ounce of prevention

summary of last Sunday's run

A few weeks ago I started having a familiar pain in the ball of my right foot (my good foot).  Familiar because it was around my sesamoid bones and one of those bones in my left foot is what caused my nightmare foot injury and surgery several years ago.

I read online and did some self diagnosis and decided that my high arches were to blame.  I visited my local running store and left with insoles which I had been considering anyways.  And these are really cool, BTW... you can put them in the oven so they mold to your feet in an almost custom way.

Despite my expert self diagnosis, new insoles, resting, and icing, last week it was hurting more and more even when I wasn't running or walking.  Considering that I just registered with a friend for the Vegas RNR half in November, I was sick even thinking that I might have injured the same bone(s) in the opposite foot.

But instead of ignoring the pain like I did last time I did the responsible thing and made an appointment to see a foot & ankle doctor.  I went yesterday and the great news after x-rays was that nothing was broken. :)  The doctor's bigger concern was why I would be having these kinds of foot problems at my age so he started moving my feet and ankles around.

"Impressive" was his response when he was testing my Achilles strength.  But just when I was getting all proud of myself he shot me down with, "do you know how extremely tight your Achilles are?". 

I didn't... I have never even had a thought about Achilles tightness when I have been running.  He equated the extreme tightness to running in high heels which suddenly made the ball of the foot pain make lots of sense.

Thankfully I haven't developed any sort of tendonitis in either Achilles so he simply wrote me a referral to a physical therapist who will be able to show me how to stretch so I can stop running in high heels. It will only take me 3-5 visits to get the stretching down and from there he said I should notice a major difference in my running as well as a disappearance of my foot pain and some of the other "little" pains I have while running.

I don't think I've ever been to PT prior to having an injury so this will be something new for me.  But this is definitely a welcome change and this preventative mindset just might be something I stick with... ;)