Ask a Question about Your Condiition

Ran in my first half marathon on Thanksgiving ... as a warmup for my first marathon in Feb '09. At mile 10.5, I felt a pop and then swelling and a lot of pain. Finished the race and on doctor's advice have laid off running for a month. Doctor said that I likely had a partial tear of my PF. Large bruise on instep. Doctor suggested that after a month, I could slowly start again but if it hurt at all, that I should continue to stay off it. Shouldn't it hurt a little as I begin running again? Prior to the injury I was running about 30 to 35 miles a week and I finished the half at a much faster overall pace than I expected. My 15 year old son is actively training for the same Feb marathon ... how can I get my 44 year old foot back to normal for this race ... we were really trying hard to run it together

Your body's efforts to heal this have probably stuck everything together like spagehtti that no one bothered to stir. Torn or partially torn PF tendon sounds about right. Muscles have 40x the blood supply of a tendon. They take a LONG time to heal, especially when you're already in your 40s (I am, and I KNOW) and it's a grade 2 or more (which is likely). In the meantime, break up the adhesions by seeing a really well trained massage therapist who does deep, very precise, muscle specific work. If they can't tell you about ankle structure in ridiculous DETAIL, you need to find someone else. Then you need to do stretching with MET, to re-lengthen the calf muscles. If you don't know how, and your therapist can't teach you (or doesn't know) go to my website, http://www.kaywarren.org, fill out the contacts page, and ask for "MET for the Calf" I'll e-mail it to you.

I won't promise you can do your marathon, but your chances will significantly improve if you get this done.

Kaelyn