I went to see the doctor about my injury.
She told me that I have Paroneal Tendonitis. Below is a picture of where the problem stem from.
Peroneal tendonitis is cussed by excess stress being placed on the peroneal tendon. The stress can be acute or chronic. The doctors said it usually requires 2 to 4 weeks of rest. I almost started to cry. She is also a runner, she totally sympathize what I am going thru being this close to the starting line of my marathon. She concluded that my left leg is slightly longer than my right leg, hence, it takes the beating of pressure of every foot strike. This explained why any pain and problem I had is aways on the left side. She said I should wear a “lift” in my right shoes to even out the pressure.
After much debate and test, she gave me an option-one chance to make a decision whether to run the marathon or not. She taped my left foot with this special water-proof tape to stabalize the heel. It was quite an elaborate taping, and it is supposed to last for 3-4 days. With the taping and the lift for the right shoe, she said I can try another training run. If during the run, the pain persist or got worse, I must stop and scrap the marathon idea for now. She made me promise that I would be honest with myself and not be foolish about this becasue there is always going to be another marathon but if I insist on running thru the pain, this probelm WILL become worse and chronic.
I am very disappointed, because it is not looking good, even with the taped ankle, walking around still hurts. I will, however, do another short run after work today to test it out. Mostly, I am confused about “resting”. Exactly what does that mean? What work out can I do without my feet? What about walking? spinning? yoga? All these activity uses my ankle and require some kind of streching of the tendon…
Anybody got any idea about cross-training?
Swimming.
How about running in a pool, that would be low impact and you could still use legs but not have the pounding of your whole body weight.
I’m not any expert but for me I would take the rest that my foot needed and not run anymore and keep walking only when I had to and I would call it advanced tapering and then run the marathon, with all your past running miles on your feet 10 days off may be enough to heal. unlike most looking at your running miles it seems to me that your body has been recovering from many miles and you have trained your body to recover and it should do what you trained it to do,recover strong and there is always another marathon, but I do know it must be hard to make a choice to not run.
I second the swimming….if you go to the local pool or workout facility with a pool you should be able to use their “flippers” and I’ve heard, please correct if I’m out of line, that wwimming with fins on will strengthen all those little tendons and muscles in your foot/feet…therefore strengthening your running in general…can’t hurt, but get to it now. You’re almost to your taper week right? So if the pain isn’t there too badly you should be in fine form to run. My .02
I feel that pain too. Well, not that exact one - mine’s on the sole of my foot. No, I mean the pain of being grounded while your body heals.
Swimming sounds good to me too. But I’d be wary of strapping on a pair of those pool fins. Yes they’re a great way to work the tendons around your ankle, but you’re supposed to be resting those tendons. Being a particularly weedy specimen, I’ve found that fins can leave me quite sore afterward. Oh, the other problem with them is that you end up swimming way too fast. I’ve come close to whacking my head on the end of the pool a couple of times like this . . .
Sorry to hear about the injury. I KNOW what it’s like to train for so long and hard for a marathon and have to make the decision to cancel. It was VERY hard for me, but there IS always another marathon.
I’m not a doctor, but I would recommend giving it a week of rest no running or walking (unless of course in a pool as suggested above), then try a small run. This will determine whether you can do it or not.
I know you’ll make the right decision, no matter which it may be
Thanks for posting everyone!
I tried to guage where I am in the pain scale today while I was just at work walking around and it has gotten worse. The soreness and stiffness had gotten more servere. I have a feeling the 4 miles I ran yesturday morning, did not serve me well.
By the end of my workday, the original plan of heading out for a run to test my taped ankle had to be scratched.
I don’t want to risk further injury, there will always be another marathon, disappointment aside…
At this point, I am thinking if I lay off running until right before the marathon (that will give me at least 8 days), do a short run, if there’s no pain, I will get to the starting line. That sure sounds like a good idea if my body permits.
For now, I might have to really take it easy and embrace the foreigh concept of resting until I am well…
Tomorrow is our firm’s annual golf tournament I have to play 9 holes with clients. Looking forward to different scenery…