My Achilles' Heel is My Achilles Tendon

Just like the Greek hero Achilles' weakness was his heel, so too is mine right now; however, my hope is that unlike Achilles, this will be a temporary condition for me and I will be able to heal my heel and continue training for my second marathon. No downfall for me, I hope. Yes, I just recently completed my first marathon about a month ago, and after finishing my first marathon, and while still high on endorphins, and during a moment of insanity, I decided to sign up to run another marathon this year.

Finally recovered from my first marathon race, I started training for my second marathon.  Things were going quite well with my training until about two weeks ago when I injured my Achilles tendon.  It was such an easy thing to do: get injured.  I thought that after two weeks off from running, and another week of very low mileage, I was ready to get back to my normal, pre-marathon training mileage.

Yes, I know exactly how I hurt my heel.  It has something to do with the terrible too's of running: too much, too soon, too fast. Not just that, but running too much, too soon, too fast while training on hills, in other words, I was asking for trouble, but believe you me, I sincerely didn't realize that I was asking for trouble at the time, even after repeatedly being lectured by the Team in Training coaches about how to avoid injuries. Therefore, because of my lack of judgment, I now have to cut back on my mileage, slow down considerably, and avoid running hills.

I applied ice to my Achilles tendon almost continuously for close to a week, I rested my foot as much as possible, stretched my calves all during the day, taped my heel with KT Tape, and used compression socks.  So far, so good.  Right now, I've been training very cautiously.  I make sure to warm up well by walking slowly, stopping to stretch my calves really well, and then I run/walk until I can run continuously for a few miles on the treadmill.  Running on the treadmill instead of running outside makes it easier for me to control my running speed, to control the surface I'm running on, and to avoid hills.

I'll continue to take it easy until my foot starts to feel better, which I'm sure will be soon because my foot only hurts in the morning.  And I'll try very, very hard to be patient.  Hopefully, I learned my lesson about the terrible too's.