Rocky Raccoon 50K - The Aftermath

I knew I fell hard at Rocky Raccoon 50K (race report here). But my pride was hurt too. And I felt wimpy because trailrunners fall - it happens. So why did I have so much pain the second half of the race and drag myself to a sub-optimal overall performance?

A trip to the sports chiropractor Monday, two days after the race, was extremely revealing.

That unusual pain in my left foot, the foot that hit the tree root? The pain that caused my friend Dat, on seeing me at mile 19 on an out-and-back stretch, caused him to say I was walking "gingerly" and he wondered what had happened? The foot that the night after the race was over, I was wondering if I broke something in the middle of my foot, that was visibly swollen the day after on Sunday too?!

Looks like I locked up my navicular (I had to look up how to even spell this). It's a bone on the top of the midfoot. And if it's off, due to a shock or jarring action, you aren't going to do a good job of being able to flex and bend at the ankle. Which is kinda something as runners we do I don't know, a bazillion times, during a 50K?!?

Now what about the whiplash feeling that wasn't going away, and the odd asymmetrical pains? Right achilles, left hamstring, right glute, left glute medius? When I fell, my body got TORQUED. Never a good weird. I was twisted, from my hips to my shoulders, and had run/walked like that for 20 miles. And to show how twisted, normally when laying face down on a table, my normal out-of-alignment tendencies would have my left hit slightly raised of the table while the right hip is level. That's how my pelvis and sacrum normally get out-of-sorts.

Instead, this time, my left hip was against the table, and my right hip was listened. So I had twisted against the grain of my normal tendency to twist the other way. The biomechanical effects are traumatic.

Happy to say that the great people of Texas Chirosport, and Dr. Chris Miller, got me all fixed up after 1 1/2 hours of poking, prodding, neuro-stimulation, icing, muscle work, and adjustments!

Yesterday's 4.2 mile run I noticed how much more normal my body felt. So happy that it was a simple alignment fix. So so happy I already had a recovery appointment at the sport chiropractor and that I hadn't kept running and putting miles on a twisted torso!