Pain in the Foot

I figured this needed to be a separate post, because I finally saw the foot doctor and got some bad news. First off, though, my ankle has been feeling a LOT better these last 2 weeks- I got new sneakers, have been wearing them regularly even just walking around, and in the last 3 runs, my ankle only hurt after 35-40 minutes, which is a great improvement over the majority of January.

Now- the bad news. Apparently I have Achilles tendinitis, but its not SO bad, because apparently if it were, I'd have a large ball of ripped tendons sticking out of my ankle. So, the doctor said its good that I'm checking it out, its obviously already begun to heal, and prescribed some remedies: continuous anti-inflammatory patch, ice 2-3x a day, light stretching in the AM, and ... no running for a week...and...building back up from 30 min on, making sure to stop BEFORE it hurts (and I guess at the very latest, as soon as it hurts). So, huge bummer, considering the half marathon is looming (in May, but still). I really don't want to get behind, but I also really don't want to let this injury get worse. My only consolation here is that its on the upswing without having done any resting for the last few weeks, so hopefully with resting it more, it'll only keep improving. The other bad thing is that I emailed my coach and she said no run clinic for February because she doesn't want me running on the sharp-turns track (and the stairs, which the doctor informed me were the WORST thing I could have done with this sort of injury!) . I will also apparently have to incorporate pool running, which sounds absolutely awful, to keep up with the longer runs. Sigh sigh sigh. I'm pretty down about this at the moment. I was already feeling sluggish in my running, and this is only going to set me back further. :(  Not to mention that I absolutely love going to run clinic and seeing everyone. February is going to be a long and hard month...