I'm Back!

I'm officially unofficially back in action! It seems that my Achilles Bursitis is healed up and I'm able to get back out there. I think I probably could have gotten out a little bit sooner but I wanted to make sure that things were healed up well and also life has been quite busy so the injury was a nice excuse to slow down...

The primary means of healing for me was ice with elevation and NO SHOES! Every time I wore a pair of shoes with a heel my bursa would become aggravated and inflamed. a couple days ago I went on a 3/4 mile run and it felt good. I'm happy that I was able to continue walking barefoot through the injury because I didn't seem to loose any of the progress I've made in strengthening my feet and calves. I'm sure that my cardio is down but I wasn't really in running shape to start with!

Hopefully I'll be able to learn from this little experience and resist the urge to push too far too fast...

My First Bad Run

OK, so today after two days off I went out and practiced some of the drills posted yesterday. I was surprised at how little you have to lean forward to begin forward motion when bouncing on your toes. Otherwise I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to gain from doing the drills, I'm not seeing a direct connection to actual running or form...

After drills I tried running a bit while keeping my knees bent slightly more and not reaching my foot out as far, keeping it totally relaxed. It felt . . . wait for it . . .

My Aching Achilles

I've managed to get in three real runs now and they felt pretty good. On each of them I started getting a hot spot on the outside edge of the ball of my left foot but no other issues at all. On Monday I ran one mile BF then later that evening played a two hour long softball game that pushed me to my limit. The great news is that by not using my orthotics in my cleats I didn't experience any of the "normal" pain that I used to while playing! The bad news is that I strained my Achilles tendon in my right leg. I didn't know it at the time but I woke on Tuesday morning STIFF. I took the last two days off, trying to stretch things back out and I think I'm going to be ready to get back to a little run tomorrow.