Fast Running Blog

First of all, I don't think it's that bad.  It got a little tight and sore on me during a run yesterday morning and I cut it short.  It was sore all day yesterday and still is today.  It's kind of hard to avoid running hills in my neighborhood and I never fully recovered from my first 6 mile run ever last Sunday.

I plan on riding my stationary bike the next 3 days, hoping things clear up a bit by Monday.  Starting Monday or Tuesday, plan on running at a track or a more flat section of the neighborhood (basically a .7-.8 mile course looping past my house).  Should I be more careful than that?  My calves were pretty tight all week and I always run hills, so I'm assuming those were the causes.  I haven't been running long enough to have a chronic injury.  Does my diagnosis of the problem (assuming correct) have any bearing on the treatment (as opposed to this being a chronic injury due to other, less correctable factors)?  How long should I expect to stay off hills?  They're kind of hard to avoid in my neighborhood.

I think regardless of the cause your plan is good. Cross-train while it hurts, then try to eliminate the possible stress factors. Staying flat while you are starting out with running is a good idea anyway. I would add eating nutritious food, staying away from junk and getting plenty of sleep.

Thanks.  Things are starting to loosen up a bit now.  Today is actually the first day I haven't felt a lot of tightness in my left calf while stretching.  I would imagine I will be able to start running again tomorrow (super easy and super flat).

The hills in my neighborhood aren't exactly huge, but they're plentiful and I had shifted my route up the largest one to avoid running in circles.  I guess it's going to get boring here for a while.

I think stretching the calves and hamstrings are important in avoiding achilles tendonitis.  Be careful not to stretch too hard, especially if the achilles is sore.  But if a day or two of rest has made it less sore, then start some streches, lightly at first, several times a day to loosen up those muscles.  I thought an achilles injury was coming on for me but it was another tendon more on the inside of my feet by the ankles, and stretching has really helped.

I just read an artilcle  on achilees tendonitis and it was talking about this person being tight in their Psoas and hip flexor muslces.  As soon as she (being Denna Kastor) started streching these muscles this stablized her hip thus relieveing pressure on the achilles.  My purpose for telling you this is everyone is going to have differant inbalances and need to strech differant places.  But in general EVERYONE should have a regular stretching routine that targets all the main muscle groups.

What and where is the Psoas muscle?  I want to do every stretch that Deena is doing!!! (j/k all).

more and more research is showing that the idea of achilles tendonitis is false, that anti-inflammatories fail to address the underlying problem, and that wraps, massage, and stretching are the more correct methods of alliviating the painful symptoms.

The Psoas muslce is the deepest muslce in your stomach,  it goes from your lumbar vertabra to your lesser trochanter of the femur bone (inside top of the leg).  It draws the leg up so any lung pose will stretch this.  This is alot of time why you feel sore in the abs after a marathon.
Adam is exactally right!! There is always an underlining isuue when you get a serious injury and my best advice is to see a professional to help you figure out what that problem si a fix it.   That is why I push treatment and stretching so much.  In fact I feel like I stuff them down your throats:)

I'm going to assume this is just a standard discussion about Achilles in running circles, but just for the record:

I don't think I'm at the point where I'd call it serious, yet.  It felt well enough for me to attempt running yesterday (first sign of injury was Thursday, I believe) and while I didn't exactly have to stop because it hurt (yesterday), I knew it would be sore afterwards.  It was, felt a little better last night, and a little worse today.

Consider the fact that I've only been running for a little over a month and already had to shut down a bit for pain in my right foot.  6 miles was the furthest I had run on one day by over a mile (4.78 was the previous long, I think) and paced by a faster runner, I ran that 6 a little faster than I normally run 3.  My calves were tight all week and after an off day on Monday, I ran through it like it didn't matter... running decent sized hills, no less (3 uphill sections in 3.3 miles).  From what I've managed to read in my down time, it would've probably been more abnormal for no injury to come up.

Regardless of how I feel, I'm going to ride the bike until Monday.  If I feel no or very little soreness in it by Friday, I might attempt running on Monday and stay flat all week, and mostly flat for a while longer.  If it doesn't feel much better at all by Monday (especially in 2 weeks), I'll start thinking that professional help might be necessary.