Good News from the Foot People

OOOOOOOOkay.

I have news peoples.

On Thursday, I went to see the foot people. I say people because there were three of them who checked me out. Now, others might have found that intimidating, i.e. “hey, come have a look at this freak in Room 2”, but I took it as a sign of how much they respected my circumstances and what could be done to fix them.

I was there a total of three hours and was prodded, pulled and drawn-on. They took measurements and lengths (not that one) and discovered much. Turns out I really, really should have visited someone in this field of medicine a long ago. My natural podiatric situation requires, er, some tweaking. There is stuff going on that should have caused me a lot more problems that I had, which was my defence when asked why I didn’t visit them sooner. In fact, I was occasionally complimented on my relaxed, fluid running style, so I didn’t ever consider there was a need for correction or tweaking. But there was and it probably caused the back injury. Yup, we have a culprit. The issues with my feet and posture are known causes of stress and compression in the, you guessed it, lumbar region. So my existing prolapsed disc was a sitting duck and all it took was the increase in running training during our triathlon off-season, namely the half mara and finally the Sydney City2Surf event to start the rupture. More specifically the infamous climb around the half-way mark called Heartbreak Hill, which increases those stresses even more.

Anyway, that’s the bad news. Then came the good.

Much of it can be fixed, simply and quickly. In fact, they expect a 20% improvement immediately once my shoes are adjusted. Woohoo. Then a further 50% within two months. Awesome! Funny, they seemed surprised by the attempt at cartwheels I made in their consultation suite. Apparently we are supposed be aligned through the ears, hips, knees and ankles. I'm not. I suffer from a thing unfortunately called “sway back” which means I lean forward in posture. This is caused by tight calves, which may be genetic or just that way from years of training and not stretching enough. I do stretch after running but not much more. Regardless, it can be fixed and then so will my posture. And then so will my lower back stress. With this on board, they feel my goal to race at Noosa in just over two months time is possible. Not probable, but possible. It will depend on my body’s response to the treatment. That’s cool. I just want to be there and take part really. I know that I’m not going to challenge my PB for an Oly (2hr 16min 02sec in 2005), no, my goal is to finish and not walk at any point. I’m thinking a sub 24min swim, a sub 1:07hr bike and then a steady run to finish.

Now, here’s where it the really good part comes in.

They also have a dude on staff who is a trained sports psychologist and physiologist, and who is doing his PhD in neural-muscular pathways. Seriously. So he was very interested in my case and frankly may want to base some of his research on my results. I spent about an hour with him discussing what’s happened and what I can do and not do. He wasn’t thrilled when I said that I couldn’t raise myself up 1mm on the damaged leg without support, but when he held my foot and got me to point toes, pull them back, twist left and right, and then push the ball of my foot against his pressure, he declared my nerve damage isn’t as bad as I think. “Really?” I asked, then how come I can’t walk or run without a limp. He thinks the neural pathways are recovering and the connections are working, but still weak. Mostly the muscles are affected and must relearn how to work, and more importantly take load. He can help with that. A plan of increased weights and repetitions will change things. Sooooo COOL!!! He said if I couldn’t move my foot in those ways, then things would be more difficult, but since it does work, the other stuff is fixable. IN TWO MONTHS.

So I’m excited. It’s all positive and already I have things to do. We talked about visualizations, which research has proven can trigger muscles and nerves to behave in a desired way. I have to lie quietly and imagine myself running without any problem, smooth and balanced. Over and over. And my nerves will start to fire in the same sequences, etc. Funny, because I already do that now and even dream like that. I’ve had many dreams in the past year where I’m running just fine and even realise this in the dream and wonder how I managed to fix it.

What can I say folks? Its all good and I am going to do this race.

Watch this space dear reader. Watch this space.