Posts Tagged ‘injury’

Nerve-wracking

I didn’t run at all this week, and I’m typing this from a prone position on my living room floor. Yes, it’s yet another injury, but strangely enough, one not directly connected to running.

I ran 7 miles last Sunday and while it was a crappy run, I had no pain or twinges. Nor did I feel any soreness all day afterwards. But at about 4 a.m. Monday, I awoke with a stabbing pain on the outside of my right lower leg. Assuming it was a cramp, I massaged it. Nope. How about a peroneal tendonitis flare-up? Tried some ice and all I got was a frozen pain.

I took an Advil and went about my day Monday, but still had a dull ache. Monday night was sheer hell. I had migrating pain and muscle spasms deep in my right buttock,  then next to the fibular head behind my knee, then the outside of the right shin, leading to pins and needles and numbness in my right foot. I’m no doctor, but that sounds like nerve problems to me.

I was up all night with excruciating pain and I couldn’t find a comfortable position. Tuesday and Wednesday were a little better, but Wednesday night was ghastly. The stabbing pains were accompanied by muscle spasms. My right calf and thigh locked up. I finally broke down and made an immediate appointment on Thursday morning. My doctor is pretty sure (as am I) that I’m experiencing sciatica. He prescribed Vicodin and a muscle relaxant.

So now I’m hopping around the house like, well, House. But it beats running around the house like Jack Bauer, with all the screaming, torturous pain, and no sleep for 24 hours.

I have zero back pain, but sciatica can be caused by spinal problems, so I had an x-ray and will have a CT scan this week. Training is obviously on hold, considering it hurts to run, walk, stand still, sit down, lie down and bend. Other than that, I can do anything I want. However, recovery from this should be quicker than from an ankle injury or tendonitis. Technically, there is nothing wrong with my leg, just that one long nerve that runs the length of it. It’s firing off like the 4th of July and the muscles are responding accordingly.

I’m disappointed (again) because of the interruption, but unless some serious underlying cause is discovered, it will probably dissipate over the next week or so, and I can gradually get back to business as usual. In the meantime, I’m trying to learn to type while standing on one leg.

Ice Ice Baby (and Insoles)

You may have noticed a shortage of blog posts about my running recently, and the explanation is simple: It isn’t funny. I haven’t had a relapse, and I’m running 8-10 miles a week, but I’m not 100%. I keep toying with the idea of visiting the sports medicine clinic, but I’m not having any trouble walking, my insurance won’t cover an MRI just for fun, and there’s a six-week lag between asking for an appointment and getting one. So I’m treating myself, and you know what they say about that.

Perhaps my chronic peroneal tendonitis has traveled to the top of my foot. Or maybe I have ankle synovitis. Or sinus tarsi syndrome. (I know, it sounds like a line from Star Trek: “Who is the alien guy with the tentacles?” “He’s the ambassador from Sinus Tarvi.”) Does it really matter? The treatment regimen is always the same: RICE. So I go out and do my 2.4 mile loop every other day, come back inside and use more ice than a bartender mixing a $1 margarita. It’s working great and cutting down on my Advil bills.

I was also up around 400 miles on my shoes, so I headed down to Fleet Feet for a pair of Asics Gel Evolution 5s. I have medium arches but I am an Olympic level over-pronator. Really. If I pronated more, I’d run sideways. So not only do I need a motion control shoe, but an insole that keeps me from overpronating inside the shoe. I chose the Superfeet greens. I’ve run in this set-up twice this week and so far, so good.

I’m still running at a decent clip, but I have to come to grips with the possibility that I might never get back to the 57-mile-weeks necessary for me to run another marathon. It might be “bust” for my “BQ or Bust” but I’ll still be a happy runner.

Rocking the 0.6 Miler

I went out for my first run in two weeks on Saturday and it was awesome. I covered 0.6 miles in 5 minutes flat – just as if I had no layoff at all. It was very encouraging, as long as I ignore the fact that I was in pain for the entire five minutes.

I’m fine now, because I stopped before aggravating my injury. If this keeps up, I’m going to have to change the name of this site to Swimming Is Funny.

Surviving the Unscheduled Taper

We all know about taper madness, but at least you know there’s a race at the end of it. I was running a steady 30-35 miles a week before my latest injury (absolutely identified as peroneal tendinitis in the right foot). Now I’ve gone cold turkey for two weeks and I’M FREAKING OUT!

I’ve got all the symptoms – jittery, agitated, manic-depressive – you know the drill. I get bummed when I see other people out running. I get bummed when I spot the race brochures lying on my desk. I get bummed when I look at my CIM countdown calendar on my computer. I get bummed when I realize I’ll be watching another Boston Marathon on TV.

Still, it actually gets easier the more times I’m injured. Just like running the marathon, you have to ride out the bad stretches to get to the finish. It will just make my BQ story all the more compelling (or insufferable) when it finally happens.

The Week of No Running

Well, I can walk normally, and the pain is gone even without Advil, but the stiffness remains and I know from previous experience that I’ll only aggravate it if I start in again too soon. So I wait until both legs feel pretty much the same.

In the meantime, the updated standings from the Buzz Oates RunSac Race Series have been posted. You have to love an event that rewards you more for sheer dogged stupidity than for speed. Last Sunday I ran a reasonable 50:28 10k. It was age-graded to a 44:09… which was good enough for 39th place out of 46 runners!

Yes, I’m clearly out of my league. However, in the short term at least, I am kicking major butt because as long as you race, you get points. No matter how fast you are, if you don’t race, you get zero points. So my crummy finish still boosted me to 26th place in the overall standings, out of 153 participants.

That’s pretty impressive, until you check and discover that I’m 26th out of the 31 guys who have run all three races so far.

The next race is in two weeks, but it’s touch-and-go whether I’ll manage it. Until then, it’s massage, ice, rest and prayer.

Rehab, Alas, Is Not Funny

Fresh off my pretty good 10k yesterday I can report that I enthusiastically hopped out of bed this morning and immediately sank to my knees in agony. OK, it wasn’t that dramatic, but I’m hobbling around the house like Long John Silver with a hotfoot. So bye-bye training group! So long race schedule! Arrivederci running fitness! It’s back on the recovery train for this guy.

If history is any guide, it will be at least a two-week layoff, and perhaps more. The problem with this sort of injury is you never know when you’re actually better. You feel OK in the morning, you go out and run, you feel OK afterward, then you wake up the next morning numb below the knee.

In the meantime, I’m looking for a cross-training program that relies on hopping.

Roadkill

First published November 16, 2007

As I lay face-down in the gravel, bleeding, my mind searched frantically for the answer to the one question that was of immediate and critical importance to me:

What is the penalty for animal cruelty in Sacramento County?

I was eight miles into my one and only opportunity for a 20-miler. I needed it to determine whether I could run, as planned, the California International Marathon (CIM) on December 2. My greatly accelerated training schedule had led me to this point, this day, to make a go/no-go decision.

Things were going remarkably well. I started slowly, and gradually reached my targeted pace. I worked my way up the hill to the levee, where the next two miles of my route lay over a flat trail covered in small gravel.

Suddenly, darting up the hill came a yappy little pooch—looked like a pug, but it was only a mini-blur as the devil dog thought it would be great fun to launch its 12-pound body directly between my ankles.

Timberrrrr! Down I went in a cloud of dirt, rocks and dust.

So, having quickly computed the various moral, ethical, legal and monetary ramifications of punting his little ass into the Sacramento River, I dragged myself up and performed a systems check.

No broken bones, no torn ligaments, no major bleeding. I jammed my left shoulder, and it was sore. Pretty nasty road rash, particularly on my knees and forearms, and my palms were badly flayed. Along came the dog’s owner, calling for Hershey or Percy or Jersey, and then asking if I’m all right.

I was pretty cool about it, but then she left without leashing the dog. As I began to continue running, Hershey/Percy/Jersey came after me again. I stopped, spit a mouthful of mud and pebbles at him, and he took off running in the opposite direction.

That wasn’t a technique I picked up in my reading anywhere, but it seemed appropriate at the time.

I brushed myself off and resumed my run. I’d love to finish this story with “bloody but unbowed” details of my successful 20-miler and my decision to run CIM. In fact, I only made it to 15 miles before the stinging and the strange yaw to the left induced me to pull the plug.

Anyway, after antiseptic, bandages and Advil, I’m fine, but I was skirting the edge of good sense before this fiasco, and now time’s run out for a quality 20-miler before the race. So no marathon this year.

But I am thinking about taking up hawking.