Week 7
If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you’ll have heard all about The Saga of Kris’s Right Foot over the past week. It started with tenderness/pain in my right arch while I was running, then that turned into sharper pain on the outside of my right heel. Last Friday I went to see Dr. Maja Markovic at Sydney Uni Sports Medicine. She poked and prodded my foot and took a look at my shoes. She said that my plantar fascia felt tight, and she advised a bone scan to rule out the serious stuff (stress fracture, heel spur, or full-blown plantar fasciitis). I went in for that on Tuesday. They dosed me up with radioactive technetium and then took pictures of my feet and legs over the course of a couple hours. (Though it was a weak dose and I was only radioactive for less than a day, they told me to avoid standing near any children or pregnant women! Fun.) On Wednesday I got the verdict: no serious bone problems and no PF. Hooray! Dr. Markovic has cleared me to run again. Basically, we think the problem was just that I’ve been overworking my feet (specifically my arches with the forefoot running). The scan showed some inflammation on the outside of my right foot, presumably because I’ve been favoring the arch by shifting my weight to the outside. (That’s also why my heel has been hurting.) She’s given me a routine of massage, stretching, strengthening, and icing to do, and she also wants me to see a podiatrist before I buy new shoes. But I can ease back into running again.

Of course, I caught a cold on Monday so I’ve got to get over that first. If it’s not one thing, it’s another!

Feb 17: 2.5km
Total this week: 2.5km
Total in 2010: 137.2km (85.75mi)

The only “workout” I got in this week was walking home from work yesterday. I don’t normally count walking in my weekly total, but given the doctor’s orders to start back slowly, I think this one counts. My 20km cushion in the 1000km Challenge has evaporated, and I’m now exactly on track with where I should be. I told you it’d come in handy!