#39 - Hurting

I've been meaning to post this one for a while and further posts could be far in between since I doubt I will be running any time soon. I’ve been dealing with a wicked plantar faciitis since early June (As of now I'm not 100% sure it is PF, read below). I was feeling pretty good after a setback on my calf for a week in late May or so and then my PF started to hurt really bad to a point where I could not continue to run without pain. I’ve had some foot issues over the past 6month-1yr early in the morning but it always went away pretty quickly as the day went on and never when running. Looking back I obviously should have taken care of it earlier but I never knew what PF was all about and I just thought I had some other ailment.

 

So I had to pass on Cayuga 50M and decided to take it easy for a week or so but thing didn’t get any better and in fact things got worse. Knowing that I had the Ultimate XC 58k in two weeks I then took a full week off, believing I could come back and run without pain. I also bought a night splint but I only received it a week before the race. Even though the splint is the best thing you can do for PF it takes way longer than a week.  Anyways, I had planned some vacation time in Quebec with family prior to Ultimate XC and I was able to run around the mountains to test my feet, I could only go for 45min max without feeling pain, after that pain usually set in and I had many instances where I stepped on a rock/root and I felt a sharp pain. So after all this and only being able to run <100k over the last month it was time to run 58k on technical trail! NOT!

 

Just leading up to the rained a lot and the night before it poured and it was drizzling at the start line. I’m not going into too much details about the race but my foot wasn’t feeling too good at the beginning and I was thinking I would not going to finish. The good thing was that it only got a little worse and I was able to finish the race albeit with pain but not something I could not manage. Apart from knew deep mud in many places and the technical portions of the trails the most difficult part for me was the water/mud covering all the rocks and roots because every time I stepped on them with my heel I wanted to cry. On the other hand the cold water throughout the race kept my foot somewhat numb and helped with the pain. I think about ~130 racers started, about 60 finished and I ended up in ~30ish place with ~8:50. I’m not proud of my performance by any means all I wanted to do is finish really. I was undertrained, hurting and not in a good state of mind for running. I would say that if was trained and my foot was not hurting I could have been in the late 7hrs or early 8hrs mark pretty easily. I ran this race 2 years ago in Mt Tremblant and now its in St Donat and its a point to point, but still would recommend this race to everyone, it is an awesome trail run and you can’t get this type of trails in Ontario no matter where you run. My GPS measured ~9,000ft for 58k so it’s very comparable to Hyner. The weather was crappy for sure but the festivities at the end were also pretty good. On the negative side you get nothing for signing up just a right to race, I think only the first 400 that sign-up get a technical shirt.

 

So after all kinds of stretching, icing, resting, night splint, etc.. my heel still hurts a lot and I can't run without pain. I've been reading everything out there and I now think it could be some kind of stress fracture in my heel so I'll be doing some X-rays soon enough. 2013 has definitely been a disappointment.

 

All the best to everyone doing Leadville next month and any other racing. I'm very jealous and I'm not a happy camper so you guys better get your belt buckles!