Ankle Tendonitis

by Kristin
(Prattville, AL)

I have had pain primarily on my lateral and anterior tendons of my right ankle. I have had this pain about 2 months now and took 3 weeks off of running and just biked, swam, and lifted weights within that time. I'm back to running six days a week and doing track intervals on my schools asphalt track. How do I ease the pain if i want to last the 4 remaining racing weeks of track?

From Kristin

Only four weeks left of track. I don't know how severe your pain is, or your pain threshold, but I hope you can make it through. The first thing you should know is that I am not a doctor, nor do I have any aspirations to become a doctor. Take this advice with great caution, and make sure to seek out the help of an athletic trainer if you can.

The advice that I am going to give you is simply how to relieve the pain, not heal the injury. Wrapping it, taping it, or exercises to do must be given to you by someone who can actually see your ankle and move it around to assess your injury.

With that said, here are some things I have done, or runners that I know have done to get through some nagging pain. First of all, you have to ice that ankle every day, especially after you have done your workout. There are two strategies that I like for icing an ankle. The first is to freeze water in a styrofoam cup. Then you can tear off the edges of styrofoam exposing the ice. Rub this ice chunk on your ankle for 10 to 15 minutes. It will feel really cold, but it works well for reducing swelling, and numbing the pain.

The second way to ice is to get a large bucket, fill it with cold water and dump some ice in there. Submerge your whole foot in the bucket for 10-15 minutes. It really hurts and is super cold for about two minutes, but then your ankle will be numb and you won't mind for the rest of the time.

The last tip involves, "Better living through pharmaceuticals." Basically this means take some pain killers. I was partial to iduprofen in my day for my knees. (I still do take iduprofen when they are achy). Do whatever you can, because you should be tapering back your workouts anyways as you approach the end of the season. Less workouts mean a hopefully healthier ankle for racing on.

Happy Trails - Coach Tief