Yesterday was the day of the Edinburgh Marathon. The day when I was meant to be taking another 10 minutes or so off my marathon pb and attain a 'good for age' time for a future London Marathon. The irony of me not being up in Scotland's capital running the race of my life but instead being poked and prodded by two podiatrists while I hobbled and limped about for a couple of hours was not lost on me. It turns out that my foot problem is considerably more complex than I had thought. Weak peroneal tendon; check. High arch; check. Inflammed sheath around a nerve; check. Leg length difference; check. Complete lack of pronation; check. Completely useless orthotics; Yep, got those too. I genuinely though that they were going to take photos and stick my feet into a medical journal.
What can I do? Well, in the main I am already doing the right thing by the stretching regime that I have but I need to focus more on my hips to get my left leg back in line. I actually need to concentrate on walking correctly and straighten my left foot up, which is constantly pointing outwards and do the same when stretching. Other orthotics may well help but the ones I have are actually making my gait worse. I have very bent feet (my toes point upwards making the end of my foot concave which is then putting a lot of stress on the muscles in my foot to compensate) so they made up an orthotic which props up my forefoot and allows me to pronate properly. I noticed a difference straightaway, which was encouraging. Still a very long way to go. They seemed to think that I could be running again in 6 weeks but I just do not want to risk it. I am going to stick to 12 and then see how we go from there.
The other thing I am trying to control is my eating. Last week I went a bit nuts. I came home after a hard day at work on Friday and hit the food cupboards hard and then had a full dinner. I was just eating for the sake of something to do and as the second Cadbury's mini roll went in I thought 'This has got to stop.' So it has. I've been snacking on fruit rather than rubbish and trying to limit my carbs and portion sizes. Not dieting but just being conscious of what I am eating and being sensible.
Funnily enough, despite my foot forcing me to stop training for a couple of weeks, my mojo has begun to make an appearance. I guess because I have not been able to do any proper training it's made me want it more, even though in the last 2 weeks I would have settled for being able to walk normally. There's a 50 mile tt at the end of June and a 25 a couple of weeks after which I intend to enter and use that as an immediate focus to get myself on the bike and do some racing. I am hoping that this should be foot friendly. I pick up my boat next week and so I'll be having a play around in that and no doubt be getting very wet. There's even a nasty rumour going around that Adam and I may be entering a Hasler.
Hodge; Shouldn't have done it though. It believe it's significantly delayed the healing of my foot. When will I learn?
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