January 2012 - Here We Go Again

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

It doesn't seem long ago that you were constantly beset by injury, beating yourself up and doing all your runs on a treadmill. Remind me -- what happened? How did you get out of that grim cycle?

A good question EG. As usual there is no one simple answer, but in thinking about it I’d say there were three main things:

1. I had my podiatrist carefully fine tune my orthotics so that they did their job really well. This virtually eliminated the shin splints, plantar fasciitis and illotibial band strains I was suffering in one fell swoop as well as reducing much of the impact pressure on my knees.

2. Daily supplementation with glucosamine increased my knee cartilage significantly, and ginseng which improved the circulation to my toes (eliminating arthritic pain and stiffness) and my hands (reducing the swelling and numbness I was getting whilst running).

3. Altering my gait over the last few years to more of a mid-foot strike with a higher cadence has lessened the impact on knees and hips, further reducing the pain I was getting in those joints.

It’s probably also worth mentioning again that I largely replaced sprints and intervals with hill climbs, which give much the same benefit but without the heavy impact on the joints of sprinting.

Not sure how any of that helps you with your calf problem, but what I’d suggest to anyone with chronic issues would be to not give up: focus on what you can do, rather than what you can’t, and keep talking to the professional medicos until someone starts making sense and actually identifies the real issues and can go about fixing them.

Believe me, it’s worth it!