Shotgun to a Knife Fight

Dreaming of Dirt

The title to this post may be a little misleading. I have not actually been taking a firearm to a fight of any kind, but that is the approach that I taken for bringing this achilles injury into its final healing process. Given that I am highly motivated to get this injury healed and I am very interested in medicine I have recently done nearly every treatment that has been shown to be effective in treating achilles tendonitis. This week I have continued to use the nitro patches on my achilles every night, I have had graston technique performed, deep tissue massage, provoke B12 and procaine injections in the tissues around the tendon, and weighted eccentric calf raises until the cows come home. After hitting the injury with this shotgun of treatment I feel like I finally have had some good progress this week and the achilles is finally feeling healed. I will start ramping up the running this week and see how it holds up and I am very optimistic that I can finally put this behind me.

I am planning on racing the Red Hot 50k this February as my first race of the year and I am really stoked to get out on dirt this early in the year. There have been a lot of big things happening in trail and ultra running this last year and I am committed to step up my intensity in training and racing in order to keep being competitive as things heat up. I was once again offered a spot on the La Sportiva Mountain Running Team and on the Nuun Ultrarunning Team, I am very excited to have this wonderful companies backing me again this year as well as the La Sportiva associate sponsors: Ultimate Direction, First Endurance, Petzl, Green Layer Apparel, Julbo, Headsweets and Defeet. With great sponsors and renewed motivation I think it is going to be a wonderful year. Look for some upcoming posts on a tentative race schedule, nominations for Ultrarunners's wife of the year, and some winter running techniques that I am currently working on.