My Achilles' heel

These days I'm sporting an Achilles tendon injury on my left leg. It started a little over two weeks ago while in New York as a result of running and walking too far without being in good enough running and walking shape to withstand the stress. In the beginning, the injury was a small nuisance whereby the tendon was stiff and painful only for the first few steps of the morning but otherwise OK, and it has since blossomed to hurt most of the time—even when walking and biking. Though the cause of the injury is overuse, which is a euphemism for “having been insufficiently conditioned for all that running and walking in New York and then having been stupid enough to continue worsening the injury,” the cause is compounded by the Five Fingers shoes I wore. Thus, I can credit this as my first Five Fingers injury—though I'm still fond of those shoes.

After a few Web searches, I've learned that I have the symptoms of Achilles tendinosis. This is degeneration of the tendon, not inflammation. With that I've learned one useful fact about treatment: anti-inflammatory medication, such as Ibuprofen, is detrimental to the healing process. Instead, treatment requires relative rest and, optionally, stretching and icing. “Relative rest” sounds a lot better than just “rest” because it means I continue to be active, though only with activities that don't aggravate the injury. In other words, swimming is OK. And I ought to be doing more swimming regardless.

Another benefit is that I can apply some of my own wisdom and save money by not competing in a couple of races I was planning to do. Through those aforementioned Web searches, I learned that my grade 2 or 3 tendinosis requires one to three weeks of relative rest. Add to that Hofstadter's law. Add to that the lesson that it's unsafe to ramp up training too fast, and the result is that I won't be in good form until this year's races are over. I'm not complaining or pleading for sympathy. This will probably lead to the better use of my free time.