Not Happy

The last time I ran was about 10 days ago. Since then I've been laying off due to a heel injury. Not sure when or where it happened, but the back of my heel - not the bottom where I walk, but the back below the Achilles tendon - has been sore as heck. I have multiple theories about what caused it, and then a ray of hope at the last moment.

Before my last run there was snow on the ground all week, so I wore my hiking/snow boots the entire week to work. I've worn them plenty before and I didn't feel like I had any foot problems with them during that week. On Saturday the 15th I ran on the treadmill. No problems there, either. But on the next day when we went to church I strapped on my boots again due to more snow, and the back of my right heel hurt like...well, it hurt like heel (no, not a typo).

I thought maybe I'd injured it while running inside, but it didn't make sense because I never felt like anything was wrong. No matter what shoes I wore after that the pain was there, and very intense. I thought maybe I'd bruised that area and the feeling would go away. I also considered that I possibly had a bone spur, but it came on awful quick for that to be a possibility. Not that I'm an expert on bone spurs. Maybe that's how it happens for all I know.

I took the week off, and then on The Wife's birthday I attempted to run again. Same problem and I stopped within a minute. On Sunday and the next two days at work I attempted to cushion that area by wrapping an extra sock around the back of my heel. It worked, to a degree. The degree stopped when I tried to run again today. Inside, because we've had snow on the ground for 2+ weeks now. Once again, same result. I tried to tough it out, but opted to throw the shoes and socks to the side and walk on the treadmill barefoot. I even ran about 15 minutes barefoot. About that...

Let me just say that running barefoot on a treadmill isn't necessarily the best idea. I don't know if it's any better or worse than running barefoot outside, but the texture on the belt has a lingering "burning" effect on human feet. It's not a terrible pain, but it also doesn't feel good when I'm walking around. Maybe my feet would get tougher if I continue this routine, but hopefully it won't come to that.

The glimpse of hope involves inserts. Tonight I stopped at Target and picked up some heel inserts. When I arrived at the ol' homestead and realized it was trash night, I realized three things. #1 - It's cold outside so I have to wear shoes; B - My heel hurts like an evil little blacksmith is pounding on it with a tiny but effective little hammer; and Last Slide - I can try out the inserts right now. Opened the consumer-friendly packaging without impaling my hand on a shard of environmentally-conscious plastic and slipped the glorious gel inserts into my shoes.

It doesn't do justice to say I felt instant relief as I walked around in the garage. It was quicker than that. To go back just a little bit, I bought new dress shoes for work at the beginning of the year and ditched the old inserts because, well, they were old and they'd been in contact with my feet for way longer than anything should be in contact with my feet. As of now that seems to be a bad decision. Apparently I should have replaced them at that time.

Those bad boy gel inserts are going in my dress shoes tomorrow. We'll see how it goes, but I'm hoping this is the start to recovery and being able to run again. I don't like to miss so much time because I tend to continue eating the same amount as when I'm logging plenty of miles. Not a good combination. I'm hoping that the run in a few days goes better. Until then...