Pride goeth.......

I said in an earlier post that I didn't want to go into visit Dr. Kevin the week ahead of a marathon, it's amazing how pain can change things. When I woke up on Friday, my left foot was hurting. So I looked at my work schedule, swallowed my pride and called Lyn Lake Chiropractic. As always, no problem getting in. They did a quick check of the structural integrity of my ankles and feet and saw no issues asked about the pain and from there they proceeded to use the following on me.

Electrical stimulation (felt tingling)
Ultrasound (nothing to note)
Deep tissue massage (pain)
The stick (less pain than the massage)
Adjustments (left ankle did feel like it popped back in place)

As I talked with all of the different folks who worked on me they all said that they have plenty of runners who come in the week ahead of a marathon so I shouldn't have even hesitated. They are expecting to be real busy next week with more folks coming in ahead of Grandmas. I just never like going in for help. The reality is that I can be a bit stubborn and I never like to ask for help. I always think I can fix it myself and that if only I had stretched more, iced more, lost weight and done a couple dozen other things then the problem would go away.

When Dr. K was checking out the left foot he asked when had I sprained my ankle and noted that I had an upper ankle sprain (more on top than on the side) and that it was still a bit swollen. He pressed right on the tender spot and then said that was probably why my left foot hurt and felt torqued. He adjusted both feet/ankles and when he did the left, it felt like it went back into place and the torqued feeling I had had seemed to lessen.

Then they taped me up with the kinesio tape and wished me good luck. Here is a video from Runners World showing how to use the tape for Plantar Fasciitis (sorry about the commercial that pops up first). It's the way my left foot looks, they also have a video on taping for Achilles and a variety of other conditions on the Runners World website.



I will be curious to see if the tape helps at all, I went for a real easy run yesterday and it seemed to work ok, and my pain level was reduced. Was the pain reduction from the tape, the massage, the adjustments, the fact I was going slow or simply a placebo effect? So am I now ready for Swan Lake, probably not but I have done everything I could have.

My plan for Swan Lake is to do the run/walk method since I haven't gone farther than 15 miles since Chippewa, I am expecting the last 10 miles to not be too pretty but my only focus will be finishing not on time. My hope is that if I if I can get this in as a long slow training run and not cause anymore damage then I should be ok for Afton. After that I will plan out the rest of my summer running plans and then start to train towards a 50 at Surf the Murph.

Final weather forecast for Swan Lake, they say a low of 50 tonight so it should be in the low 50's at the start headed towards:

Sunday, Jun 14

High: 75 °F RealFeel®: 76 °F

Partly sunny and beautiful

Looks great................