‘every new beginning comes from some others beginning’s end’
About three months ago, I started this journey of what I thought would be making a shift into a zero-drop, more minimal type shoe. I would track the progress and see how it goes leading up to Fat Dog 100k trail race, sixteen weeks later.
Along the way, I uncovered a lot more than I suspected. Not only am I not going to run Fat Dog, I’ve come to the realization that any kind of long run, anything over an hour, is not the right thing for my body right now. It’s a pretty stark gap — sixty minute run max, to a hundred kilometer trail race. On the one hand, I feel disappointed, because I really do love running in the mountains. On the other hand, I still feel encouraged, because I think I’ve had clarity into my personal situation in a way I didn’t have, even remotely, when I started this blog series.
It started by switching to the zero-drop, and I had a lot of progress quite quickly once my mechanics normalized. Around week five, I had a really amazing trip to Central Oregon where I did four back-to-back-to-back-to-back trail runs. I felt really good the whole time. Then I came back, and I figured I was ready to start adding intensity and train in a more classic way. That held for two weeks, and then everything blew up. My heels hurt, I couldn’t do a long run, and I was left wondering what was going on.
At that same time, I also started to unravel my chronic headaches, and that the NSAIDs I was taking were actually causing my headaches — what’s called a medication overuse headache. I also learned that just having chronic migraines, which I’ve had for years, and having medication overuse headaches, you can develop a condition called central sensitization, where your pain sensitivity can increase thirty to forty percent. On top of that, my heel pain was also likely increasing my central sensitivity. So the picture looks like this: I have a pain condition, and the migraines, the medication overuse headache, and the heel pain are all contributing to it. And it loops back, so then I feel those things even stronger.
I went through a period of maybe three weeks withdrawing from the NSAIDs, and it was actually really hard. I had a tremendous amount of headaches, and my heel pain increased. But I made it through. Now my headaches are getting much better. I’m starting a daily medication for them, and they’re starting to normalize. The medical literature suggests that coming out of medication overuse headache, it can take up to twelve months to normalize your pain and nervous system. I’m one month in. That’s kind of where I’m at.
What’s encouraging is I think I finally have something that can address what’s actually going on. I think my heel tissue — the tendons, the bursa, all of that — is not actually that bad. I think I’m just very sensitive to pain right now. I’ve started a new training method, based off of the Norwegian method by Marius Bakken, and it’s allowing me to get more out of less running. No long runs. I’m doing three lactate threshold training sessions a week, but controlled, so I don’t go too hard. And I’m running my easy runs super easy. I’m not flaring up my heels anymore. I’m not doing any big trail runs, and that’s all stuff I really love. So there’s a disappointment to it, but it’s just the reality of where I’m at.
It’s been humbling. It’s a reminder that you really can’t predict the future — not even close. I was only trying to look a few months out. And I’m grateful that I’m still running and training. I’m going to run a three thousand meter race at the end of July, so I guess that’s the comparison — I’m able to run a three thousand meter race, and I’m not able to run a hundred kilometer race. There you go.
Looking forward, I’m going to be doing more blogs about my experience as a runner and a coach with the Norwegian method — the focus on lactate threshold training and control of intensity.
