Tuesday, August 21, 2012

injury update....August 21

Does having Achilles Tendinitis once at some point in your running career make you more likely to have it a second or third time? This is something I think I'll look into.

So I went to River Valley Health last night and they noticed that my calves are really tight. So they worked on them and then when I got home I worked on them a little bit more with the foam roller and a tennis ball.

What I've been noticing is with myself is that when the right combination of tight calves, sore feet and dehydration come together my Achilles starts to get painful. Which made me think about what led to this weeks soreness in that tendon.

I mean my calves are pretty tight all the time so that is nothing new. My feet have been sore for almost as long as my calves have been tight. So that leaves me to believe that its dehydration that is the cause this time, which when you think about it sounds right as its been very hot lately and to be honest I sweat quite a bit all the time in this heat and most of the time I can only get out to run at the hottest part of the day. I don't weigh myself before or after running in order to determine how how weight I've lost due to sweating, but maybe its something that I should start doing.

That and bunch of other things such as yoga classes and or massage more often. I'm thinking that I should do more of both every month, but its incorporating them into my schedule that will be a problem. But not one I'm going to worry about for a week or two as I'm taking the next week or so off running and training as we are heading to the Centre of the universe (if your from Toronto) for a few days to visit friends and a family wedding.

All's good in the land of Niall (for the moment)

Monday, August 20, 2012

Injured...again!!!


And so it ends…. Tragically, after the results I had gotten in my last four races…. I think my season is done!! I managed a whopping four races this summer and always in the back of my mind is the issue with my left Achilles. For most of the summer it was good, I felt a couple of niggles here and there but a quick visit to the chiro and I was good to go. Yesterday my Achilles was hurting all day two weeks into a fall running plan. I didn't have any marathons planned but I wanted to get in a couple of races before we went in to winter slow down.

The thing is I wasn’t increasing my running totals (time or distance wise) by that much nor was I running any more intervals per week than I have since my marathon on January. I have been running in a pair or two of older shoes which may have made the problem worse.  I wanted to get in a good solid run base throughout the fall and winter as I believe it has been the training I did for the marathon in January that really helped me in the summer.

There are two major areas that I always seem to be hurting from and they are my right Hip and left Achilles, Now I'm not sure if they are connected but when it comes to the body what happens in one area tends to have a knock on effect in another area either further up or down on the kinetic chain. The problem with my hip is mostly due to working in a job that requires a lot of sitting, which as an athlete you'd think that sitting most of the day is better than standing all day... and it is but at the same time it isn't.

I think I may have to start concentrating on riding my bike swimming and core work until the injury is resolved. I’ll be heading to River Valley health tonight to see if they can help me out.