A shocking time

Seven weeks and two days ago, I took on London2Brighton and managed 56k before I pulled out due to excruciating pain in my right heel.  I knew going into it that my troublesome heel might not last the distance, but I wanted to give it a go and see how far I could get.  Unfortunately, it started to niggle at 10k and was verging on proper pain at 20k, which was hugely disappointing as I had gone further with less  pain during my training runs.  At the 40k check point, it was so sore that I was limping while running and came into the checkpoint fully prepared to stop, but 30 minutes of eating crisps and drinking tea and texting just about everyone that I know for advice helped me to realise that I wanted to try to carry on to the half-way check point at 56k.  Which somehow I did.  I couldn't run because my heel was entirely too sore - it was like having knives stabbing into me with every step - but I did manage to very slowly hobble my way for 16 kilometres.  It took hours and hours and hours but hey, I got a t-shirt and a Half-Way finishers' medal out of it.  Sensibly, I decided not to hobble on for the remaining 44k.

I haven't been able to run since, aside from a disastrous test-jog three weeks ago.  Adam and I had been working on the assumption that I just had a bruised heel but my reaction to the test-jog made him think that something else was going on.  He thought that I needed an x-ray to rule out a heel spur and, since we knew that Lars the Osteopath (who had so successfully treated my hamstring tendinopathy with dry needling a couple of years ago) has an x-ray machine at his practice, I booked myself in.

It turns out that I didn't need an x-ray.  Apparently shrieking and trying to kick Lars in the head when he dug into my heel was diagnostic all by itself.  In addition to the heel spur, he also identified very unhappy plantar fascias from all of my limping.  'We have a great treatment for this,' he said, 'and you should see rapid improvement within three sessions - but it's going to hurt.'  Pfft, I thought, I'm a tough ultra runner.  How bad can it possibly be?  The answer:  pretty fucking bad.

Heel Spur posed by model.

Hello, Shockwave Therapy.  I have never in my entire life felt anything as painful as this.  It's like having a tiny jackhammer pound on the sorest part of your body for what feels like an eternity but in reality is probably no more than 10 minutes.  I've had three treatments so far and the first one was so painful that I didn't even have the breath to swear.  But after the first treatment, I was walking pain free for the first time in months.  After the second treatment, I had several days of feeling like I had a normal foot again.  I had the third treatment yesterday and am enjoying another pain free day today.  We now give things two weeks to settle down and then will review progress, including whether I can start introducing running again.  I'm not necessarily expecting to get the all clear in two weeks, but I am feeling positive that it's all moving in the right direction.