I was soooooo worried about my feet during the half marathon that I went a little overboard at the race expo. My right foot and ankle have been bothering me for a really long time.  But I was worried about my “good” left foot somehow inexplicably giving out on me, and so I bought this ankle wrap sold by some overzealous vendor at the Expo. And I got it wrapped by the KTT tape folks. AND I wore special sports compression socks.

My foot started aching during the first mile and by the time I got to mile 11, it was excruciatingly painful. I loosened up the Velco straps but it really didn’t do the trick. Last night, the first night I didn’t take Aleve, it started acting up again. It was realllly tender on the outside and felt swollen. I started to freak out and think I had maybe gotten a compression fracture. I started thinking, if I broke my foot, Everyone is going to say, “You shouldn’t be running! You broke your foot!” I started spiralling into this crazy defiant place and feeling like my victory was going to be snatched away by some embarrassing injury.

Luckily, the stars aligned and at the same time that one of my own work appointments no-showed, my podiatrist had a last-minute opening in his schedule. I went over there, with visions of cast boots and crutches in my head. AGH.

But he took a look at it and immediately diagnosed that I’d brought a case of tendinitis upon myself, by compressing my foot into this tight sleeve, and then as it swelled up more and more from activity and pressure and miles upon miles, the tendon was totally raw and irritated. Voila. I DID THIS.

The good news is that I can undo it with some ice and Ibuprofen. I didn’t break anything and I can keep running, after I rest it up and let the tendon calm down.

But it is yet one more lesson I learned from this marathon: do what you can to support your body, but don’t go overboard with stuff you have never used and don’t understand.