Need I say more…

The official diagnosis is tendonitus. Not of a specific tendon, but because it doesn’t seem to be anything else based on my symptoms. No swelling or bruising, no consistent pain, no morning pain. Doc explained that a break or stress fracture would be a constant level of pain. I have pain at use. There are so many pesky tendons in our feet. Pretty amazing how we work.

Disappointment.

So now I need to RICE my foot (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation) and NSAIDs for inflammation for 2-4 more weeks.

Until someone says I shouldn’t or it causes pain, I’ll continue with some exercises I’ve been doing, using our BowFlex and will try the bike. I know a pool would be best. Right now, I don’t have access to a pool. Bummer, we do what we can. Right?

My goal is to minimize the loss of strength and cardio – maybe join a gym. Was planning on it at some point, this may be the point. We’ll see.

A visit to a physical therapist is on my list. Need some exercises and to manage my re-entry into training. A trainer may actually be the right person, but starting with PT makes sense in my brain.

The most frustrating part of this is not knowing. I work in the tech world… not the body world. In the tech world, it’s mostly binary with some shades of gray. When working with the human body, there are so many variables that may or may not be impacting your condition. It’s humbling… and frustrating sometimes. It’s the ice under the water surface. The iceberg you can see is so much easier to deal with.

The choice to take time off and paying attention to the pain rather than pushing through were the right choices. Now I know what tendonitus looks like now. There are times living vicariously through someone else is fine… oh… this is one of those times! 🙂

The key is to learn what I need to do, which muscles I need to build up, or stretching I need, so this doesn’t happen again. A couple years ago I was doing Bikram yoga and running. It may have been a coincidence but after starting the Bikram, problems with my running reared their ugly head. It caused me to stop running for a couple months. After doing a little investigation, I learned that many were warming up/stretch by walking before running.  That for some people the stretching caused problems with their running. So, I stopped doing a lot of stretching before running. That may have been a mistake. It’s probably about finding the stretching that my body needs to run longer distances. It’s about finding the combination that works for me.

Part of this process of training for a half was to get my body back into shape. Looking at me,  you probably would say I’m in decent shape. To run longer distances requires a different level of fitness. My abs continue to improve, but I could do more. My core gets stronger. Taking at least a month off running means I’ll need a different way to continue to build.

Being injured is frustrating, learning what you need to do to avoid it in the future is empowering.

Focusing on empowerment!