Foot Fun Part 1

My feet. Two vital running appendages I’ve relied on for years to aid in my forward motion. Unfortunately, for over a year, my feet and ankle have been giving me trouble, much to the detriment of my running.

After thinking it over (and feeling like I’ve really neglected this blog), I decided not to try and cram everything about the foot and ankle injuries I’ve dealt with the past two years into one post, but to rather write a few posts. Hopefully some of this information is relatable, can serve as a cautionary tale for how not to deal with injuries, or at least be somewhat entertaining to read about my ineptitude.

I should have learned at this point, but my modus operandi continues to be: 1. Start to feel an oncoming injury. 2. Ignore said oncoming injury. 3. Notice the oncoming injury is now an injury. 4. Cut back on mileage and intensity and hope it goes away. 4. Don’t cut back enough and the injury doesn’t improve or gets worse. 5. Finally go and have it looked at.

In the next few posts, I’m going to be writing about how I’ve followed this same pattern for three different injuries in a span of over two years.

The first thing that started bugging me was a pain on the outside of my ankle. It lasted so long I really have no idea how long I dealt with it—over two years for sure. It was a constant minor pain, but since it never really slowed me down, I just kept running through it. Finally, after I started dealing with another injury (more on that later), I made an appointment with a physical therapist. She gave me some exercises, which I did, but unfortunately they didn’t clear up the problems of either injury.

After no improvements, I finally made an appointment with a sports medicine doctor, Dr. Voight, who I’ve worked with before and is absolutely phenomenal. Why I didn’t schedule something with her sooner is a major duh moment for me. She diagnosed the ankle with peroneal tendinitis and recommend a couple things, and while one injury (which I’ll write about later) lingered, the peroneal tendinitis cleared up in less than a month.

I can only imagine how things could have turned out differently had I gone to Dr. Voight right away. My spring marathon might not have been as slow, and I might not have put on over ten pounds of winter weight. 

So that was two winters ago. This past winter I dealt with a different injury, and apparently I didn’t learn anything from the winter before. Stayed tuned.