Trouble in Hamstringville

i have a thick fleece sweater on, i'm sitting in my bathtub filled with cold water and i just added a big bucket of ice (if you haven't tried it after a long run, you should. speeds recovery.) (lisa, if you can do the ice, so can i - i'm going to be as tough as you!). so it is a perfect time to update my blog.

yesterday i picked up my newly recovered orthotics. i have custom orthotics because in the course of training for my first marathon i continually wore shoes which were too tight (i was young and inexperienced and didn't know) and damaged a part of the toe joint on my second metatarsal. the fact that my second toe is a little longer than a typical second toe doesn't help - the joint is in front of where it should be. so, the orthotic repair guy put in a metatarsal pad which was a lot bigger width x length than the old one, and was also higher. he said he thought since the old one had been worn for three years or so (by my recollection), the prior pad had been compressed down from use. i thought he may have a legitimate point there as to the height, though i am confident that it was never this big in area. i agreed to try it out over the weekend and see how it went.

i ran out to smith's switch station again this morning - i left at 6am, got home at 8:45, 13.5 miles. the reason i was so slow is because i stopped to stretch my right hamstring four times. my right leg wasn't a happy leg from the start this morning - my right shin muscle (tibialis) was complaining and my right knee was complaining and then when they finally quieted down after three miles, my hamstring felt left out and picked up the tune.

my right hamstring is just not loving life. it is tight and sore and unhappy and complains to me almost all the time, except when it is asleep. the stretching I do on my hamstrings is to put my foot up on the countertop and lean forward as much as i can, hold for a count of 30, switch legs, then repeat. my right leg hamstring hurts a little just getting my foot up on the counter; my left, not at all. i can't lean forward hardly at all on my right leg; my left, i can lean forward some (for those germaphobes, freak not: i always put a washcloth on the countertop under my foot and put that into the hamper when i'm done).

sometimes i have also done the classic hurdler's stretch, though not recently. maybe this is just too much higher for my right leg yet. perhaps i should return to the hurdler's stretch instead of using the counter top. i've tended away from the hurlder's stretch because i have to get onto the ground to do it. i am typically drenched when i get home, and the inside floor is not the cleanest place for a wet body to land. i suppose i could do it outside on the driveway (relatively cleaner) but then i have the mosquito hordes to deal with. hmmm, decisions, decisions.

my orthotic was a pain in the foot today. i did a little measuring when i got home, the metatarsal pad in the left one is further back than the right one by (an eyeball guess) one quarter inch. it matters because the current arrangement feels like a grape under my plantar fascia - a soft, squishy, giving grape to be sure, but a grape nonetheless. i'm going to have to take them back and ask him to reposition the pad in the left orthotic so that it is symmetrical with the right one. the left one is more tricky as he said - there is a horseshoe-shaped pad under the second toe to provide additional accommodation for my damaged joint, and that is difficult to position with it and the pad taking up some of the same real estate.

well, all the ice has melted now and my legs are like cold, white popsicles. really, it is only unpleasant for the first few moments, and the results are wonderful. Onward with the day.