My appointment at the ortho today couldn't have went any better! She said she doesn't see a stress fracture and the tendon doesn't have any tears. She did say there was noticeable inflammation but she doesn't feel like running will cause any further damage. My official diagnosis is peroneal tendonitis. Thanks Dr. Google for leading me in the right direction.
Obviously the more I run, the longer its going to take to heal. But, I am cleared to run! She did tell me that I should take it easy. She advised to listen to my body and not push too hard in St Louis. That means that I will most definitely not PR, but I am okay with that - I am just thankful that I won't have to walk the whole distance!
I have a 5k this weekend, I am going to try to treat it like a training run. I say try, because I often have a problem with pushing too hard when I race. I am really excited to run it because its at the college that I attended and its a memorial 5k for a former student who was a year behind me. I think it will be even harder for me to hold back because looking at past results, I could take 1st in my age group if I ran my normal 5k race time. I know its just an award, but who doesn't want to win something? lol
I do have to go get fitted for anti-supination orthodics next week. The doctor believes it will help prevent flair ups of this in the future. The injury is a result of over-stressing the peroneal tendon. Part of it is the running I have been doing, but part of it is that I naturally supinate - ALOT and it puts a huge stress on that tendon. Here's hoping that the orthodics help!
Thanks for everyone's well wishes as I dealt with this minor/temporary set back. Of course since I was cleared to run today I had to go out for a run tonight! I went out this evening after my hubby got home from work and ran 3.1 glorious miles. It felt so fantastic to get back out there. I wore my fancy new garmin - I still don't know much about how it works, but it says I ran 3.1 miles in 27:52 (a 8:59 per mile pace).
Reader Poll: If you were in my shoes, what would you do in regards to my half on the 23rd? I obviously know I won't be PRing, but what would your race strategy be?
Such good news. I'm glad you got to try out your Garmin - see a nice reward.
ReplyDeleteI'm a supinator -welcome to the club (it's a small club . . . all them pronators out there!). :)
I think a good half strategy would be to negative split the second half (if you feel good)- meaning to start out slow and comfortable. If you're feeling good then crank it up a LITTLE for the second half. If you're not feeling good then keep it at the comfortable pace. I know how you feel about walking breaks, but I might try an interval like 5:1 or 10:1 just to make sure you build in a little break to give your tendon a small regular break.
I think my best race advice is to realize that not every race is about PRing - and the fact that you're still even saying PR in the same sentence as St. Louis says to me that you really haven't embraced not getting a PR. I think my best race advice for this race is to figure out what you want to get out of (if a PR isn't possible) - meaning, do you want to really focus on pacing, or fueling well, or keeping your tummy troubles at bay, or having fun, or something else - use the race as a way to get better at running half marathons focusing on some other aspect of the race besides speed. Just a suggestion.
Good luck at your weekend 5K and at St. Louis. Glad that your first run back was awesome - hope you have a millions of awesome runs.
Believe it or not, I never planned for this to be a speedy half. All along my goal was to go and enjoy this one - you have to when you spend that kind of money to go to a race! This is my "girls" weekend where I don't have to worry about the kids and when they are going to be jumping on me next!
ReplyDeleteOf course after F4F I had small hopes of going sub 2 this time, but once my foot started acting up I gave that up pretty quickly and it was replaced with my original goal of just really wanting to go and do the race and enjoy it.
Obviously with me each race is a chance to go and learn something new and improve my running strategy. I guess thats the joy of being a beginner - I still have SO much to learn.
My doc actually suggested a walk/run approach to this race, so thats my plan. I just don't know whether to take them at set times or just when I feel like I need them.
Thanks so much for the "good luck" I appreciate it. I know I am probably annoying since I am over-analyzing everything, sorry! :)