Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Injured? Examine your foundation


 
I’ve been battling, enduring, putting up with, and trying to ignore a nagging case of Achilles tendonitis in my left ankle.  I’ve dealt with this kind of injury in the past.  I even wrote about it in my latest book, The Hard Run.  I ignored it for some time because I was very focused on getting over a case of sciatica that was making me want to cry! When the sciatica improved, the tendonitis was brought into focus. (There is another lesson.) I scaled back my mileage and purchased new shoes.  I’ve been using Vitamin I and Deep Blue, but the inflammation is still present.  Tendonitis is like that – it hangs on for a long time.
Yesterday I was somehow impressed to examine the soles of my new running shoes for wear patterns.  (We runners get a little obsessed with our shoes!)  Guess what? All the wear was on the heel of the left shoe indicating that I have been heel striking with my left foot – pounding away at the inflamed tendon. Experience has taught me that if I correct my gait I will eliminate the cause of the injury.  It will take some time to heal completely, but I will no longer be aggravating the injury. I look forward to improvement!

What can we learn from this running injury?
When you are fighting a battle in life and feel that you are not making any progress, it might be wise to examine your foundation. Are you doing something while in pursuit of a worthy goal that is preventing you from achieving that goal? Are you going about it from the wrong direction?  Perhaps you need to change your approach.

Question: Can you share an example of a change of behavior that improved your success?

Happy Running!
If you enjoyed this post you might also like The Hard Run: Painful Lessons from a Running Granny. Find it on Etsy and Amazon.  Available in Kindle, too!

No comments:

Post a Comment