Just a little injury rant!

Injuries. They can be pretty major putting you on the sideline for months on end or they can be niggles which affect your training short term and mine always seem to come about when I have an event planned. To be fair I’ve been running now for about 5yrs & have only had 3 injuries which I suppose isn’t too bad. I had an IT band issue when training for the Manchester Marathon, shoulder bursitis after completing the Manchester 100 bike ride & now I think I’ve got plantar fasciitis whilst trying to train for a charity 9 mile event & the Liverpool Rock n Roll Half Marathon in May (birthday run!).

When I was at the National Running Show I picked up a pair of Vibram Fivefingers V-Run trainers (those weird looking ones that have individual toes!). I’ve been intrigued by barefoot running & Vibrams for a while so after a short test run on a treadmill I made the purchase & gave them a go. Now I try not to do things by halves but I guess this is where I probably should’ve slowed down. Instead of starting off a 0.5 miles and building up by 10% per run, clever clogs here decides to just take them for a test run of 5k, feel good, another 5km, up to 8 mile run, covering 40 miles in 9 runs then on the 10th run (8mile) the pain hits. I got to 3.25miles after stopping 3 times with foot pain decided to give up & hobble home. Stabbing pain to the arch of my foot. The following day I couldn’t put any weight on it. 11 days on, some arnica tablets & anti inflammatory & I think I might be getting somewhere. Leaves only 13 days to get back up to 9 miles which when I’m having a full leg sleeve tattoo done in 5 days time so again won’t be able to run, doesn’t bode well!!

Moral of the story….slowly slowly catchy monkey!