I ran the Reggae Marathon ½ marathon injured last December.  It hurt and now I’m paying the price.  My finish line picture shows the grimace through the forced smile. Do you have any suggestions on how to recover from this?

First some background.  Somehow last August when I was training for the December 2010 Reggae Marathon I strained the muscles in the arch of my right foot.  It didn’t develop into plantar fasciitis fortunately but was painful nevertheless.  Being the stubborn individual that I am I ignored it.  “I’ll work through it”.  That didn’t work.  And of course I didn’t rest.

Through September and October I continued running but reduced the distance and intensity hoping that would work.  Unfortunately that didn’t either.  I passed up a ½ marathon training race in late October and that really felt bad. But I didn’t want to miss the Reggae Marathon.

Along the way I went through 3 pairs of shoes hoping that would help.  I could walk comfortably in them but running, not a chance. With frustration building, I tried an insert specifically designed to support my arch.  Again, it worked for walking but not for running.

With time running out, in early November I gave in and visited my chiropractor.  I’d had success the year before with a hip alignment problem and figured he could help.  Sure enough it turned out that there were complex, inter-related issues that were contributing to the pain.  Unfortunately though the treatments helped it was too late to ‘fix the problem’ in time for the Reggae Marathon.  “Rest” he advised.  The die was cast for last December’s Reggae Marathon though:  I was going to “tough it out”. From mile 8 on to the finish every footstep landed with a sharp and increasing pain.  My finish line picture showed a tortured smile.  It was hell walking for the next couple of days.

Now here we are at the end of February and I haven’t run in nearly 8 weeks and the pain is still with me.  Not running is a killer. Help!

If you have any suggestions, please send them. If you have an injury story you’d like to share, please share your comments on this post.

Until next time…

Reggae Marathon RunninGuy