I Need Advice!!!! Please!
Before I go through the past couple of days I need to let some thoughts come through and see if anyone has advice. I don’t want to put it out there (on facebook, etc), so I am writing it here. My Achilles has been a little tight this past week. Nothing to really worry about until yesterday… It was tight all throughout my run and then through the rest of the day. I iced it, went to the chiropractor and had it scraped, lasered, and my foot adjusted. I iced all day. I ran a speed workout today and same thing… It was tight (more so than yesterday but I don’t know if that is due to the scraping or not). The pain moved into my lower calf the last mile of my cool down. I went to a friend who scrapes for runners and she did a number on my calf/Achilles. It hurt so much but she found the spot of the main source. My Achilles does not seem as tight now but the irritation is still there (and due to the scraping… It still hurts tons… Which was to be expected). Now my question to you or maybe it’s just to get it out of my head… I wasn’t planning on racing Boston (which is 2 weeks from today), but I don’t know if I can train a heavy 10 weeks with my Achilles like this. I just don’t know if it will hold up through that much training (and the pocket book would really suffer :)). I just don’t know how bad it is and I hate to pass up Boston (and just use it as a training run) to still try for Grandmas in June to be injured along the way and miss that one, too! I’m not quit ready for Boston but I am thinking this might be my only shot for a while. Do I go for the Olympic Trail qualifier at Boston not fully being endurance ready or do I take the risk and hope to be good with my Achilles and train for Grandmas (in 11 weeks)??? I would hate to wait and still be out for grandmas and miss that opportunity (for both races), but I would hate to try for Boston, miss the time, be injury free and screw up my training for Grandmas!!! I am mentally in trouble! 🙂 What to do???
My biggest advice comes from my recuperating last year with the same injury. I found out way too late in the game that ice is not the way to go with this injury. Heat it. I immediately began to see results! Heat before and after runs and at night. Massage those calves to speed up the healing process. Hope you are better soon!
Would you race Boston or hold off? It’s tight right now so I know I have a couple of weeks (for sure) in me of running but I don’t know about 11 more weeks…. It could go either way… Where it’s nothing or it could lead into something major. (I just finished getting a massage and that helped!)
This is a super tough one and something I would say probably will have to be answered with prayer. My only thought was that I have heard how hard the Boston course is. With all of those hills it might be really tough. If that is the case you could always do a much lighter training for a few weeks to allow the tendon to mend and then do an amended training plan post Boston. How tight is the Achilles? From my personal experience a good week of rest, massage, rolling and heat can work wonders. I’m sorry you are stuck in this situation.
Thanks Sarah! You’re the best!!!