A week ago, I felt a sharp pain at my achilles after a 6.4km run and basketball session.
Thought nothing of it though and went out for a usual run the next day. The pain somehow got worse and I was made to stop after about 6km into my pre-plan 8km run. I was literally limping by then. It took me almost 40mins to walk back.
Back home, I was wondering what went long and how did I get this injury from. Initially thought I could run it off but somehow it got worse. Walking now is hard chore for me. After a couple of days, the pain seem to subside, so I decided to went for a short 4km run in the morning. Atlas, the pain came right back after the run. I finally got my answers from the net. It was an achilles tendonities - a common runner's injury. Inflammation around the achilles tendon causes pain whenever I uses strength to push off my feet. Treatment recommended was ice therapy. Have been treating the injury for a few days. Seem to feel better after these treatments, so I decided to attempt a run to test. It still hurts as I start to push off for the run but it gets better during the run although I still can feel the niggling pain. As I stop my run, I feel the pain getting back. Though not as bad as it was before but the pain was disturbing. I decided to give it another try this morning and as I push off for the first 2 minutes, I stopped. The pain was getting worse now and to prevent form aggravate it further, I decided to stop. You can call it an obsession in running. I wanted to get back to the road so much but had to refrain from doing that now. Cross-training will now be my alternative option until my achilles is fully healed.
Running with Kenyans is an intriguing book about life of the athletics in Kenya. Iten, a small town in Kenya had produced countless of long distance champions. Hundreds of them train everyday, hoping to change their lives. To them, running is not just a sport. It could be a changing point in life. Poverty had forced the talent out of them.
I realized running reflects a lot of our life. To succeed in life requires more dedication and focus. We tend to grow stronger mentally and physically under duress situations. Perhaps putting our lives to a test would strengthen our beliefs and our mind more.
