Add 5

Got inspired for a five miler this morning. Tendon doesn't feel great. It's a worry.

Carkeek Park Run and PT Tendon Maintenance

Mike, Tug and I did our first trail run together yesterday. Tug is Mike's pit bull mix. We went up to Carkeek in NW Seattle out on the Sound.

I've been fretting about my ankle all week, cuz it still has some soreness. I'm wondering if I should get some motion-control shoes in an effort to keep the strain of the posterior tibial tendon.

I've been my homemade physical therapy: doing sets of 15 eccentric heel drops whenever I feel like it (a few times per day), holding 5 or 10 pounds in weights.

I'm eating more peanuts, hummus and olive oil...the fatty food hypothesis: fire up some inflammation to accelerate healing.

I'm taking a tendon supplement program i got mostly from an ultrarunning site:
500 mg lysine
1 g glycine
a bit of glucosamine, vitamin c, vitamin
It's a lot of pills.

I ran all my miles in shoes this week. 6 miles on monday, 7 on thursday, then the 5.5 trail run yesterday. No worsening of the tendon, but PT tenderness had me cut at least one or two runs short.

cornuate navicular and the posterior tibial tendon

Perhaps my navicular is too long a curves back towards the rear foot too much. I've read that the PT is like a lever using the medial malleolus as the fulcrum. The problem is that some of us may have a shorter lever, a shorter distance between the PT Tendon insertion into the navicular bone and medial malleolus.

Perhaps this shorter lever explains my muscular calves. The inefficent PT setup requires more muscle to lift the rear foot from the ground.

An image from the MRI, bisection of ankle, view as if from behind me standing:



This could be the source of my problems. The radiologist describes this as "suggestive of a Type III os naviculare". This is an enlarged "medial horn" of the navicular bone (red arrow). The presence of a navicular type 2 or type 3 is a risk factor for posterior tibial tendon problems, as it "leads to a more proximal insertion of the PTT". Thus, "the leverage of the malleolus on the PTT is reduced and therefore the stress on the tendon increases."

http://www.rbrs.org/dbfiles/journalarticle_0220.pdf
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/175/3/627

home podiatry

i'll never be a foot model, but the arches look good bearing my full weight. the flat big toe on the right foot is odd. the MRI suggested possible injury to the cartilage under the knuckle below the toe...

are everyone's ankles this ugly from behind? is there a slight bulge below the medial malleolus of the right foot? at least i'm not showing "too many toes" at least:

ready to run?

it's been a week since the day i ran eight trail miles in the huaraches plus a treadmill mile in aquasocks...the ankle is almost back to normal...i have a slight ache on the outside of foot, where the peroneal brevis attaches...probably from supporting more weight on the outside of the foot on my last two shoe runs...



shoes still seem to aggravate my right foot, possible due to the accessory navicular syndrome...

bananas

i was reading about runner mike arnstein. he's a marathon winner, fruitarian (eating mostly fruit with some veggies thrown), and sometimes eats 40 to 50 bananas a day.

perhaps coincidentally my ankle flare-up died down after my banana this morning...ok, as this is a case study of one, hard to know if the banana had anything to do with it, but banana's are high in magnesium, potassium and have a low zinc-to-copper ratio. copper is important for getting iron absorption among other things.

TMTS

TMTS = too much too soonn...the 36 miles last week, and the 8 miler tuesday, mostly in huarache sandals, were, no doubt, too much too soon.

it's saturday. let's elevate the feet...

off day

really wanted to run this morning. but PT tendon says no...

perhaps i'll have to rename this blog "running with orthotics"...

aqua socks for minimalist shoes

I picked these up at a thrift store (hey, let's share foot fungus!), while looking for huarache material. I'll keep them in tact for now. If I ever do tear them up, the soles could one day make decent huaraches...

this isn't a new idea. if i'd known aquasocks were so cheap, i'd have spared myself the recycled foot fungus...

looking forward to trying them out, so here's to disappearing tendinitis...

aquasock miles
today: 1 mile

food and injury: fat and fat-soluble vitamins

There was a neat sports nutrition study that looked at 86 women runners' diet and incidence of injury over a one year period (not sure why men weren't included). All ran at least 20 miles per week. It found that non-injured runners had almost 25% greater fat intake. Both injured and non-injured runners were deficient in Vitamin K, but injured runners took in 25% less of the nutrient.

So, have some spinach and peanuts, or a vegetable stew of sauteed greens like the Kenyans, or raw dinosaur kale salad like Scott Jurek.

tendinitis, mud, huaraches make for slow miles

rained out for work today, so i headed back to the trails for another huarache run. i forgot to bring shoes in case my posterior tibial tendinitis acted up again.

muddiest day yet

after a couple miles the ankle tendonitis returned. after alternating running and walking, i finally tried deliberate heel striking via a longer running stride. the idea being that the PT tendon helps support the foot arch, so a heel strike puts more landing weight on heel than on arch, and should take weight off the tendon. it worked enough that i kept doing various loops until i'd run over eight miles, often slowing down to baby the inflamed tendon. my average pace dropped to just over ten minutes per mile, which is slow for me. the pain merely nagged at me consistently, never more...

perhaps it's time to try the shoes again...at least til the tendinitis settles and mud dries up...

huarache miles
today: 8.4
total: 49.6

too much too soon? walk back...

back to the point defiance trails today. parked in the same spot where the car went for a ride yesterday. forgot to recharge the sansa clip, so no mp3's again today.

so with a bandaid on my blister, i ran the trails again. yesterday's haurache remodel was a definite improvement. i took off about a half ounce of rubber per sandal (they are about 3.5 oz now)...the only difference was that water or mud could get over the sides more easily.

yeah, i really ran with this lacing...

about three miles in i started to feel something in my previously perfect left ankle. i stopped and walked. i didn't mind walking, but didn't seem to want to run today. luckily the loop was three and half miles, so it was a short walk to the car.


the ankle's fine. i might be able to put on some foot armor (i.e., running shoes) and do a few more miles...but this week, i've beat my previous top weekly mileage, most of it in the huaraches, and blatantly disregarded the ten percent rule, more than doubling last week's mileage...why tempt fate any further...

more mud got under foot
but no problem

huarache miles
today: 3.2
total: 41.2

trail run issues

the goods new is i made it seven miles. i had two foot/huarache issues.

on my right foot, i started getting a sharp pain in my second toe (next to the big one). i've had this pain with the sandals before. the previous time, it felt like a stress fracture, then after stopping it mysteriously disappeared. so i wasn't too worried, except sharp pain often really begs for attention...

on my left foot, outside the base of the big toe, the skin was rubbing against the ridge of the hauraches. the familiar sensation of a developing blister. my mistake, poor huarache design...

i tried all sorts of lacing to correct both problems, but only with moderate success. as soon as i got home, i got out the xacto knife and sliced off all ridges...


finally, worst, of all, when i got back to the car, i found it on the opposite side of the road i parked it on...in the ditch...off the road at least...the parking brake was off...it wasn't in gear...i started it up, put it in reverse, and...it sat there spinning wheels...i got out trying to dig my front fender out, hoping i could get the wheels on the ground...

not five minutes passed, and a pickup truck stops by. "need some help?"

i guess he's been waiting to try out his new winch...pulled me right out...

he wouldn't take the twenty i offered...so i jumped in my car and drove off, exhausted, frustrated, and very thankful...

oh, and i almost just set some soup on fire leaving the range on high and leaving the kitchen to write this...

huarache miles
today: 7.3
total: 38

first huarache trail run

i went outdoors in the huaraches today. ran a short loop on the point defiance trails. huaraches handled well. feet got muddy but no pebbles or other irritants got in the foot bed.

one of the leather laces failed. one broke at 2.2 miles. lucky that i only had to run 0.1 miles on virgin barefeet to get back to the car. the laces only survived about ten miles total. perhaps i'll go to nylon or hemp. will have to ask around...

most importantly, still no ankle pain while running in the sandals. when i ran these trails in shoes a week ago, i had to call a run short due to the ankle...and it's not that the ankle is much better cuz i can feel a twinge when i walk...

no worries though, pretty sure it's just accessory navicular syndrome.

huarache miles
today: 2.3
total: 22.7

running shoes vs sandals

after taking yesterday off due to ankle pain, my feet felt good this morning...so i strapped my sandals on and did a few miles on the treadmill...

i still felt good so i put the shoes on and ran outside. after about 1.5 miles, the ankle pain started again. so i turned around and slowed my pace...

after juice and a snack, i got an idea. i put the sandals back on and ran three more miles on the treadmill with pretty much no ankle pain...

this nearly confirms that the pain comes from the shoe pushing and pulling on the tiny extra bone on the side of my ankle as i run...

so much for loving the new running shoes.

huarache miles
today: 7.1
total: 15.4