Running Injuries

Injuries...I've had a few.

In my twenties, I had my first round of plantar fasciitis, (likely due to weight gain, not running), so I was quite familiar with it when I felt the classic bruised heel pain about eight years ago when I was training for a Grand Canyon backpack. However, the pain somehow changed, and I stopped running for a summer and saw a sports doctor. I actually had a stress fracture in my calcaneus. I rode my bike for the entire summer and finally healed that fall. I made a slow return to running. This was when I first ran 13 miles of the PCT that I mentioned in my first post.

As I worked my way to running marathons and training for an improved Boston qualifying time, I had a small tear in my hamstring two weeks before the qualifying race. After that experience, I decided to start running trails and doing ultra marathons (50Ks) for the enjoyment rather than trying to run Boston and being focused on time.

Training for my first 50K, I was taking surfing lessons and bruised a heel and my tailbone. I know it's not a running injury; however, I persisted in training before I was fully healed and ended up with an SI joint injury that plagues me to this day. I had to stop running for a few weeks and back off on mileage. Instead of running a race in September, I ended up running one in March.

My next running injury was an irritated pubic symphysis. I didn't even know what that was! I was training for the March 50K, running 22 miles in February in Eastern Washington...on pavement and frozen dirt roads. Ouch! I ended up just getting through it until after the race when I could back off on my mileage. That injury persisted for about a year and included six weeks off from running.

Then came plantar fasciosis in my right foot. Fasciitis means inflammation of the fascia. I didn't have inflammation anymore, just chronic pain. Because it's not inflamed, neither ice nor anti-inflammatories helped. In fact, during my treatment, I couldn't use either, not even for a headache. I did electro corporeal shockwave therapy. I took two weeks off from running, about four weeks before my race, and did the therapy. I rode my bike like crazy in the meantime. The therapy worked, and I was able to run my race and PR.

Then came the worst injury of all. I was done racing and I started to have some pain in my left heel. I wore my night boot religiously, iced, and backed off on mileage. I wasn't running more than 10 miles on my long run. I tried the shockwave therapy again, but it didn't help. In fact, it irritated the Baxter's nerve, which on my foot runs very close to the plantar fascia insertion and the calcaneous. At the recommendation of my sports chiropractor, I saw an orthopedic doctor, and he did an ultrasound, which revealed a large but thankfully partial tear in my plantar fascia. I scheduled a procedure for November 30 and had my last hurrahs. I ran 13 miles with a close friend, and did a snow backpack with my very best friends (my husband and my dog) to Long's Pass. The procedure involved going in through a small hole in the side of my heel and sucking out the dead tissue, which is apparently what causes the pain. The four weeks following, I was in a heavy boot up to my knee cap. I did Jillian Michaels DVDs to keep in shape. I finally got to remove the boot to do some cross country skiing. My recovery included running on an Alter-G treadmill starting at 60 percent of my weight. My feet barely touched the ground, not only because it was my birthday the day I started running again, but also because the harness lifted me so high my feet literally could barely touch. It took about four weeks to reach 100 percent of my weight, and then I could only run for 30 minutes, gradually adding 10% each week.

Carrying the extra weight training for the backpack and getting a stress fracture has made me wary of running with too much weight on my fastpack. I need to be lean and light, and so does my pack. I have learned to pay more attention to persistent pain and back off when something hurts. I even visited my orthopedic doctor again to make sure some pain I was having toward the other end of my arch on the foot that had the tear was nothing to be concerned about. It wasn't--just some tendinitis. He said my plantar fascia looked great and he even tooks some pictures for his teaching presentations.

Long story short: know your limits. Take some time off from training. It's hard when you're in the best shape of your life to dial it back, but if you don't, you may end up with an injury. I would much rather drop my mileage for a season than have to start from scratch like I did last January. Lesson learned.