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New barefoot runner, sore achilles tendon
John Allsopp
✭✭
Hi
Short vsn: I've just started running again, week 3, very, very slow start, very short runs, I'm 55, now I have a sore achilles tendon. What should I do?
Long version: I've never really been a runner, but ten years ago I followed John Bingham's book and ran a 10k one year, a half marathon the next and a marathon the year after. Then I never ran again.
More recently, I've liked the idea of barefoot running, bought some Vivo Barefoot shoes and started. 3 runs per week .. as little as 1 mile up to maybe 2.5 miles, very very slow .. 10 mins per mile at best, and combined it with some beginner pilates & some gym strength training.
On Sunday, I'm lucky enough to live on the coast, for a 1.5 mile run, the tide was out so I took off my shoes and ran it on the (hard, wet) beach. Happy days.
Today, I've been out for a 25 minute run, I pushed it a little, and now my achilles tendon aches.
Now, this has happened before, and it took ages of rest for it to go away.
So if it doesn't go away on my existing programme, my plan is to cut down on running (even from this small amount), to work out a way to get cardio at the gym (perhaps rowing or that weird skiing machine), keep up with pilates and strength, and to blame this on beach running. Another possibility is that I didn't warm up, but it takes me ten minutes to walk to the start of the run, so that's my warm up I think. This was straight out of bed though, so there's that.
I would like to understand more, though, why it might have been the beach that did it (I think that's what did it last time), and I'd like to know more about how to fix the problem.
What would you do differently?
Short vsn: I've just started running again, week 3, very, very slow start, very short runs, I'm 55, now I have a sore achilles tendon. What should I do?
Long version: I've never really been a runner, but ten years ago I followed John Bingham's book and ran a 10k one year, a half marathon the next and a marathon the year after. Then I never ran again.
More recently, I've liked the idea of barefoot running, bought some Vivo Barefoot shoes and started. 3 runs per week .. as little as 1 mile up to maybe 2.5 miles, very very slow .. 10 mins per mile at best, and combined it with some beginner pilates & some gym strength training.
On Sunday, I'm lucky enough to live on the coast, for a 1.5 mile run, the tide was out so I took off my shoes and ran it on the (hard, wet) beach. Happy days.
Today, I've been out for a 25 minute run, I pushed it a little, and now my achilles tendon aches.
Now, this has happened before, and it took ages of rest for it to go away.
So if it doesn't go away on my existing programme, my plan is to cut down on running (even from this small amount), to work out a way to get cardio at the gym (perhaps rowing or that weird skiing machine), keep up with pilates and strength, and to blame this on beach running. Another possibility is that I didn't warm up, but it takes me ten minutes to walk to the start of the run, so that's my warm up I think. This was straight out of bed though, so there's that.
I would like to understand more, though, why it might have been the beach that did it (I think that's what did it last time), and I'd like to know more about how to fix the problem.
What would you do differently?
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Comments
Meanwhile exercise load management so reduce the stress by running less until it settles or if it continues complete rest may be needed. You don't want to mess around with it as the healing process can be slow due to the lack of blood flow in that area.
Is the achilles sore to pinch? How low down is it? The higher the better for healing.
That's a massive amount of time walking/running with a heel lift, and now you're running without one. You've done far too much, far too soon. Pewpewpew is on the money, you may simply not be able to run barefoot.