Metatarsalgia and Other Maladies

I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV either. That being said, I am self-diagnosing myself with metatarsalgia. "What is metatarsalgia," you may ask. From what I've found, metatarsalgia is pain caused by increased pressure on the metatarsal heads, with the metatarsals being the bones in the foot. This is the first of my maladies and the one I've been suffering from the longest. Since early to mid December to be exact. Ever since A) I began ramping up my running mileage with back-to-back long runs on the weekends training for the Freedom Park 24, and B) I bought new running shoes to break in for the same event. The first of those shoes, the NIKE Lunar Glides, felt horrible and I've already returned them. As the foot lands, the metatarsals are designed to spread out and absorb the impact. My pain occurs as this happens. It gradually gets worse as the run progresses and will continue for a few hours after finishing. Although it doesn't completely go away, it is mild and tolerable at all other times, but especially noticeable walking barefoot on hard surfaces.

The second nagging injury I'm dealing with is a little more mysterious: pain in the front of the ankle. I'm going out on a limb and diagnosing it as simply tendinitis of either the posterior tibial tendon or the peroneal tendon, both of which are located toward the front of the ankle. This problem doesn't date back as far as the one in the foot. The first time I became aware of it was during the 24 Hour run. I had some swelling in the area as well, which I attributed to the compression tights I was wearing. Now I'm not so sure they were the problem. If you can imagine sharp pain in the front of the ankle when pulling your foot upward, that would be it. It's mostly in my left ankle, whereas the foot pain is in both feet.

Treatment for tendinitis includes immobilizing the area, elevation, limiting weight-bearing, applying ice, and using anti-inflammatory drugs. I saw the term orthopedic casting mentioned as well. That's out. I'm willing to cut back on the mileage and frequency of my runs in the long term, and I've already used icing and elevation, which seem to help immediately after a run. Other than that, I don't see too much else I can do. I'm certainly not going to rest completely. I think I can maintain up to two runs a week. Otherwise I plan on using this as an opportunity to spend more time on the bike and in the water. I've already logged over 120 miles on the bike trainer this month, which is more than any month last year, trainer or road!

Hopefully this will pass in the next few weeks. I'm not worried about it affecting my spring marathon training (yet) as I'm not overly worried about my times at those events. And yes, that includes Boston. However, I am worried about the two spring 50Ks I've already signed up for. I may have some problems completing them without doing any long training runs. So, my running may be dropping for the foreseeable future, but maybe my swimming and biking will be the beneficiaries.