Peroneal tendonitis--The road to recovery.

The 2 words every runner dreads saying...I'm injured.

 

 

Sometimes no matter how smart you train, injuries happen and while you can try your best to prevent them, they seem to come out of nowhere and tear you down.

 

I was training right, running 50-60 miles a week and preparing for my fall marathon that I had been looking forward to all year. I had my eyes on Boston and that elusive 3:35 finish time was all I could think about. I was running well up until the week of October 5th. After my strength workout of 3 x 2 miles, my right ankle was burning like it was on fire. Of course, immediately I was in denial about it and assumed it was part of the cumulative fatigue that I had been training with following the brutal Hanson's advanced training plan. I took my planned rest day the following day, then when I woke up that Thursday morning, decided to take another rest day since my ankle was still bothering me. At the time, I figured it was some minor ache that would magically go away by the time I woke up early to go to work the next day.

 

 

That Friday morning, I woke up before work and was out the door by 5am and running around my block. I had just started a second job, so I was getting up early often to get some miles in before I went in to work for the day...and since it was dark and so early, I felt safe just running laps around my block(lots of right turns)  That morning I managed 5 miles and as I limped back into my house, that's when it hit me...I'm injured.

 

 

 

The pain started behind my right ankle and traveled down the side of my foot and I knew right away what it was. Peroneal tendonitis. I HATE tendonitis since those kind of injuries are so hard to heal because of the lack of blood flow to tendons. I started icing right away and limped into work. I woke up the next day with hopes of doing a 12 mile run, only to spend the day icing and foam rolling my calves. It almost seemed to hurt worse that weekend and I knew at that point that I'd be out of commission for a while. I jumped on the treadmill and couldn't even walk and just laid there and cried and cried. After I let out some steam, I decided it was time to shift my focus on recovery since my marathon was 17 days out. I shared my story on Instagram that day and was flooded with comments of encouragement and support. I cried that evening but tears of gratitude from reading all the posts and love from people all over the world. The two posts that stood out were from @therunshark and @runningprado. I can't thank them and everyone else enough. Thank you, thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

From that day, I spent a lot of time foam rolling my peroneal muscles on the outside of my lower leg, icing 3-4 times a day, having my poor husband massage my calves(I literally would be balling and yelling because I had him break up any kind of scar tissue with his hands) and doing a lot of trigger point therapy. I discovered the Pro-tec K-tape and it was God sent because it actually stuck to my skin and helped support my tendons. I followed the steps on the KT tape website on how to tape the injury.  I slept in a compression sock and wore it to work too. After a 3-4 days or so of icing, I changed it to heat therapy to promote blood flow to the injury. I then began stretching my calves, peroneal muscles, and my foot/ankle 2-3 times a day. I also crosstrained on a spin bike to maintain whatever fitness I could.

 

Hold the stretch for 30-60 seconds

 

Take a massage ball and there's a couple trigger points for the peroneal tendon. About 3-4 inches below the knee cap on the side of the leg and a few inches above the affected ankle. Apply a crap ton of pressure for at least a couple minutes. It hurts like hell, but there's immediate relief.

 

 

 

For about 2 weeks, I followed these steps religiously and did absolutely no running. Progress was crazy slow(it felt that way anyway) I did a pretty good job about staying optimistic through it all which isn't easy to do with an injury and a marathon looming around the corner. About 10 days in, I had another melt down and just cried on and off all day long. I just kept praying to God that I could heal enough to just run the marathon. Forget the 3:35 time, I just want to RUN!

 

 

The last 3 days, I have been walking normal with hardly any tightness in my ankle. I felt comfortable enough this morning to attempt a short, easy run and it was a success. It's been hours since my run and my ankle feels great, so I feel confident at this point that I'll be able to run the marathon. I'm going to continue my rehab plan for the next 10 days leading up to the race and run very easy. I've already accepted the fact that Boston probably won't happen this fall, but there are other marathons out there. Many, many opportunities for me.

 

 

My body obviously needed a break. After all, I've been training hard since January of this year. I started then training for my ultra marathon, then did another marathon a few weeks after my ultra. I took a couple weeks off in June then started training for ANOTHER marathon right after. I've literally been in non-stop training mode for almost a year. Listening to my body definitely helped my injury recover faster. I don't know if my injury was from over-training, running around my block in new, stiff shoes, or whatever. All I know is that I'm turning this setback into a comeback. Injuries suck. But they keep us humble and appreciative of when we are running. I know with this being marathon season, there are a lot of other runners injured as well. All I can say, is stay positive and remain patient. Listen to your body and rest. Cross train to maintain sanity and just keep in mind that no matter how long it takes your body to heal, you WILL run again someday. Whether it's next week or 3 months from now, you will run again...And it will make it that much more of an amazing feeling.