Tendonitis and PT

Other than a few steps, I haven’t really run since my ATY race finished on December 30.  I spent a few days totally on crutches with no weight on the foot and then 2 weeks in a boot until I could see my podiatrist.  This was just in case it was a stress fracture.

The podiatrist was able to narrow the foot injury down to tendonitis stemming from the tendon on the middle toe. So – now I have tendonitis from the large toe, middle toe and small toe.  It was obvious in an ultrasound that there is a lot of fluid around those tendons.  His recommendation was a couple of weeks of physical therapy.

My first PT appointment was last Thursday.  My physical therapist spent over an hour analyzing my feet, legs, and hips and then gave me my assignment for the week.  She had a valid point that since all of my injuries are to my left foot (and knee) that there is probably some imbalance on the left side that is causing me to adjust for the imbalance and resulting in the injuries.  She also found that my glutes are very week and we are going to work on those and the hip abductors to get them stronger. 

The left foot was slightly swollen in the measurements, so am increasing the icing to 2-3 times per day (from 2-3 times per week).  The most obvious difference between my two legs is the flexibility of the soleus muscle in the calf.  Ever since my second foot surgery in 1999 (I fell two weeks after this surgery and apparently tore a tendon, but that was not discovered until last year) I have had significantly reduced ability to stretch the soleus. So – I am doing a lot of calf stretching in addition to the hip work. The final exercise at this time is balance work to strengthen both my balance and my foot muscles.  I am being limited to a daily walk of no more than 1.5 miles.  That’s probably a good thing, because the foot hurts even walking that far.

I’m dropping plans for most of my races early in 2014 and figure the Ogden Marathon will be my first race of the year.  I hope to do lots more time this year on trails and get back to running stronger and doing more vertical than I was able to do last year.