No one was more shocked than me that I was doing pretty well with my treadmill routine — alternating jogging with maximum incline (walking) intervals. That 5k in mid-March was looking very doable.
I did a bit of reading about couch-to-5k plans and the cautions about orthopedic injuries, but I am a sturdy sort, and feeling quite solid, so figured I wouldn’t encounter that issue.
Who’da thunk such dedicated plans would go awry from a blister?
But alas, a fun little snowshoe jaunt around the farm with a small group and the wrong choice in shoes left me with a nasty deep blister on my right heel. With work travel the next few days and needing to tromp around a plant in my steel-toed shoes, I can pretty well piece together what happened from there.
Crookedness. Or as we say in equine biomechanics, “compensatory lameness.”
Hindsight is an amazing angle from which to view such things. You know, AFTER they’ve gone downhill.
Now, a smart girl would have used her forced-by-blister-treadmill-downtime to work on other fitness activities, such as yoga or weight training, but instead I skipped that and pushed to get back on the treadmill just as soon as the blister was adequately healed. (And a big thumbs up to Bandaid’s Blister bandages — these are da bomb … )
But something felt “off.” My left calf felt tight, my hips felt wonky, I was asymmetrical all over and just generally sore. Still, I pressed on through a walk/jog routine (was that a twinge on the inside of my left knee? nah!) and spent a bunch of time stretching afterwards in the hope of loosening up.
Two days later, I couldn’t ignore the left knee twinge. I shortened my treadmill workout a bit, lowered the incline, put the kibosh on the jogging and decided to listen to my body.
I had just become the equivalent of the endurance rider who says “gee, Smokey felt a little NQR on his left front during that 15 mile conditioning ride; I bet what would cure him is a fast 10 miles tomorrow!”
Duh.
So I’ve got an appointment with a local myofascial release therapist and may squeeze in a trip to the chiropractor too. No further knee twinges but I’m smart enough about being middle-aged and chunky to have quit at the first sign of a repeat twinge.
I haven’t entirely slacked off. Still riding where I can (if you can call it that, it’s really short trudges through deep snow but very pleasant and a good workout for the horses even if it is a passenger and scenic-viewing event for us), doing a bit of yoga, lots of stretching and a couple of fairly short snowshoes here on the farm.
But any of my horsey friends would tell you that I am a LOUD advocate for rest when it comes to our horses.
Have been blessed to not have that apply too much to the human part of it, but I am hoping to turn a tiny subclinical owie into a non-event before resuming my 5k training.
Hoping to hit the treadmill for a little jogging and moderate incline climbing tomorrow. If all the body parts hold up.
Happy trails.