Update

As much as I like the Clint Eastwood classic, this post is not really about the movie.

In early December of this past year all was well. I had been hired on as a Licensed Massage Therapist at Physical Therapy Services in Eugene. A great clinic, working with a very knowledgeable and friendly group of therapists and support staff. At the same time, I was selected as a member of Team Pearl Izumi-Smith for 2010. A loaded team of top level athletes with support from industry leading companies. To top off the goodness, I was surprisingly pulled in the lottery to compete in the 2010 Western States 100. It was like I got everything that I had asked for for Christmas.

As quickly as the "good" arrived, however, the "bad" followed.... While training for the Bandera 100k, I ramped it up to fast and caused an irritation to my achilles tendon with accompanying gastrocnemius and soleus tightness. This condition is not new to me and I have been through it a handful of times in the 23 years that I have been running. However, for the first time, I had an added complication. A plantar wart decided to show its "ugly" side and join the party. So while dealing with the achilles issue, I went to the Dr. for two separate treatment sessions consisting of freezing the wart for 90 seconds twice with liquid nitrogen. If anyone has had the pleasure of this bit of fun, I would be curious to know if you thought it was painful. For me it was quite painful. The two treatment sessions were two weeks apart. During this time, I spent the first 5-6 days hardly walking while still working at the PT Clinic. Making the whole situation even worse was that the location of the wart was directly over a previous neuroma removal between my 3rd and 4th metatarsals. As a result, the pain was accompanied with numbness, tingling, and burning in my toes, foot, and lower leg.

After two sessions of nitro, I felt that the wart was mostly gone. Though I probably should have went in for another "freeze", I really needed to get the training going again. This brought me back to the achilles issue. I continued sessions of deep tissue massage , ART, and Chiropractic twice weekly. Like most runners, I would try running short runs for a few days and realize it was not ready yet and resort to more time off. This cycle went on for the last couple of months. Although still getting treatment twice per week and dealing with the issues on a daily basis while running, I am progressing and have been running more and more. This most likely will effect my race schedule in some way. The only concrete race right now is the Western States 100 on June 26-27th. All others I will evaluate and modify as needed.

I am happy that I had 55 miles this past week and just finished my best weekend of running since November-- Saturday- 10M (1:13) and Sunday 15M (1:50). I have learned to take the good with the bad and hopefully learn something along the way.