Another heel problem

In October 2020, I suddenly got soreness in my left heel. It was not on the tread itself, but on the inside of the heel. I tried to run away from me for a while and hoped it would pass, but it did not happen, I then found that I could run well, but optimally it was not.

Bad lifestyle

During the same period, I went to a consultation with an old Chinese acupuncturist in my hometown. At the first consultation, he measured my blood pressure and found that it was too high. He instructed me to talk to my GP. Here the same was observed. I was instructed to take measurements at home over three days. Everything had to be registered in a form. At the top of the form, some data had to be written, including my weight. Oops I thought. I had not been on the weight for a number of years. The logic was that I did not weigh too much when I did not see it. However, I was aware that the truth was different. After my previous weight loss, I had appropriated some really bad habits. I lived unhealthily. It was not uncommon to take a few lukewarm meatballs in the supermarket, for the purpose of eating them on the way out to the car. Chocolate and other goodies also often found their way into my shopping cart. A ride in the sausage cart or two French hot dogs on the gasoline station I did not go out of my way for. The same goes for some pieces of pastry. At meals, I made sure to eat well fed. However, it did not deter me for night food with butter or large layer of liver pate. A very large cola bottle could easily be emptied in one evening. The same goes for up to several large glasses of cocoa drink. The poor way of life could both be seen and felt. Clothes had to be changed to larger models of several times and I saw myself in pictures or in movies I was embarrassed. Of course, it could be felt when I ran. I was well aware that this could be the end of my running career.

The miraculous marathon

Saturday morning, June 28, it was still crazy. It was completely surreal to think of a marathon within the next 24 hours. When I had bought the start number, as well as the bus and ferry ticket for the trip. I decided to leave but was not at all sure if I could do anything at all.

Sunrise marathon consists of a route that must be completed four times. Thus, there are also half and quarter marathons at the race. In my quiet mind, I thought I could take a quarter marathons with crutches.

Saturday night the trip went from my home towards the beautiful island in the Baltic Sea. Before midnight I was picked up by the bus by my host for the coming night hours. At home with him and the family, I was hospitably entertained with coffee, muffins and cakes. I owe them a big thank you.

At 2 o’clock we drove to the starting point to get ready for the night’s race. At 3 o’clock the start was at Nexø Old Herring smokehouse. I lay down in the back and stayed there. Surprisingly, I was able to run. It did not go fast and I was sore in the foot at every step. Sunrise Marathon is known for the beautiful sunrise runners experience during the race. But unfortunately it rained like the last time I ran on Bornholm. The rain poured down quietly throughout the race. We did not get to see the sun, but could only observe that it was getting brighter and brighter.

To my great surprise, I came steadily and calmly through the first three rounds. With the exception of the drinking breaks, I was in constant running, though not fast. On the last round I was tired and not without pain. Here I allowed myself to walk every time I had to go uphill.

Miraculously, I finished in the time of 5:52:43 and received a medal that I thought was very well deserved. After bath and breakfast, the trip went home again. The total journey thus lasted less than a day.

The next day I woke up again with a foot that was hard to support. The foot was still swollen and the pain was still there. Nothing had gotten either worse or better during the weekend marathon run. It did not take long, however, before the pain disappeared as suddenly as it had arisen. In September, I ran a marathon again.

It happened again

In 2014, it went crazy again. Then not in the heel, but in my whole right foot. In 2010 I had fallen in love with the Sunrise Marathon on the idyllic Bornholm. The name of the race is telling as it starts in the dark and ends in the morning. The start of the Sunrise Marathon is at 3 a.m. Here you experience the sunrise and the beautiful slightly hilly landscape north of Nexø with a view of the Baltic Sea while you run. After the race, there is a delicious breakfast in Nexø Old Herring smokehouse. The race takes place in the beautiful midsummer where the days are long and the nights only quite short.

I had waited for four years before I was given the opportunity to sign up for this race. Now I was looking forward to the race with great anticipation. The entry fee and the trip were paid. I had made an agreement that I could promote my new book at the race. I also have a residency agreement with the race chairman of the organizing club. The great joy was to prove to be short. Monday morning I woke up with great pain in my right foot. I could not support it at all. It turned out that my foot, heel and Achilles tendon had been overloaded when I stood on a stepladder the day before and leaned in over the hedge to be cut.

It had dark prospects with my trip to Bornholm, and it was now a battle against the clock. The next few days I was twice to the physiotherapist and once to the massage. I tried healing patches, used sports band aid, sat with my foot up for periods, while in other periods I had ice on my foot.

It did not get significantly better. At times, the pain was unbearable, so I had to take pain medication. The worst was when I had to get up in the morning, while at other times it went fairly well. Periodically I walked with a cane and at the end of the week I picked up a couple of crutches at the hospital.

Hydrodilation

I also used the bike when I went to the clinic on Amager. It was a long ride, but that was no problem and the weather was perfect. I got there a bit early but then cycled round a bit until it was time for my appointment.

The doctor examined me and recommended that I be given a hydrodilatation. This involves the injection of an adrenal cortex hormone into the heel. This concerned me a bit because, as a devotee of natural treatments, I was not keen

about this form of intervention. However, he convinced me that the dose was very small and very local, which meant that the risk of complications was minimal. I accepted the treatment and was given the injection before cycling home

again.

I had been warned that the hydrodilatation might be painful later on but that this was perfectly normal. I wasn’t much bothered by it, but the tenderness abated and my optimism began to flourish.

Cured

A month later, I went back for a check-up and on this occasion insisted myself on another injection for safety’s sake. At a subsequent final check-up, I felt completely fit, and this was confirmed by a scan.

I cannot describe how glad I was. I began running again soon after, ten months having passed since I had run without a tender heel.

Meeting at the bank

The 42 kilometres I had run in China hadn’t aggravated my injury. I had expected things would get worse and had calculated with this as an unavoidable cost. The tenderness still persisted after I got home, however, and I was most frustrated and upset that there didn’t seem to be a solution to the problem.

Weight loos

In the summer of 2011, I decided to lose weight. It had nothing to do with the heel, but a realization that a man in his 50s at 107 kilos, must expect an end to his marathon career soon. I rode many bike rides and soon the weight loss started to show. Quietly, I lost kilo after kilo. It motivated me to keep going and so did the weight loss. It should turn out that the combination of bad heel and weight loss should come to me in part again later in life.

o plan B

Unfortunately, the injury didn’t just disappear. I had no plan B, but I was determined to do The Great Wall Marathon, cost what it may.

On 21st April, I ran for the first time that year, which was tough going even though I only ran five kilometres. Within the next week and a half, I had increased in my distance to 24 kilometres. It was still not easy and took a long time. But it boosted my self-confidence to be able to run that far.

I went for a long run 13 days before the marathon, but after 13 kilometres my heel started to hurt again. I didn’t want to challenge fate, so I went home and decided not to run one more metre until the big day. I had hope, but I was still seriously worried.

A fateful day

As I was standing at the start, it felt as though I was facing a possible death

sentence. Perhaps this would be the year that I fell and had to drop out of the marathon that meant so much to

me? My heel injury was the crux of the matter. The fact that I had not trained enough was secondary. This day would be a veritable ordeal.

My heel was painful from the first step and continued to be so throughout the 42.195 kilometres. But it wasn’t unbearable. With a time of 7:27:52, I ran across the finishing line. It was a great victory for me to get through the run, considering the conditions I had faced beforehand. This year’s event had been successfully completed, but the heel was still not in order.

Fitness center

It was now 2011, and I hadn’t done any sport for several months. I began to get concerned about my up-coming marathon in China. Would I have got over my injuries and would I be able to manage the marathon in purely physical terms without training? I started going to a fitness centre to do spinning, aka indoor cycling, and weight training.

At the same time as physiotherapy, I also went to craniosacral therapy. I couldn’t just sit there doing nothing and had to do what I could to get myself ready for my spring classic.

Sports physician

The treatment given by my otherwise excellent therapists didn’t work in this instance, so I sought alternatives. I found a sports clinic, the owner of which was the physician of the Lyngby Boldklub football team. He ascertained that I had damaged the sinew at the point where it attaches to the bone. He explained that it wasn’t jogger’s heel (Plantar fasciitis) although it was related.

There most certainly was hope, and he assured me that I would run again.

This sports physician also gave me shockwave therapy, but his equipment was much more powerful and this time the treatment hurt a bit. The doctor also recommended that I buy new individually designed inserts for my running shoes, which I then ordered. For a while, I thought it was helping, but then the problem returned. After seven treatments, the doctor and I agreed that this

was not the right treatment for me.

Acupuncture

While I was receiving shockwave treatment, I also consulted a Chinese doctor who gave me acupuncture and suggested some changes to my diet. Although the heel injury hadn’t cleared up, I attended her clinic for the most part of a year and found that her treatments were good for my general well-being.

Like a thief in the night

In the spring of 2021, heel pain hit me quite unexpectedly. It came like a thief in the night. It was just the night of April 9th. I was not the first in history to have woken up to something unpleasant on this very day. Here I am thinking of something completely different and without any other comparison, 81 years earlier. The day the Nazis occupied Denmark.

Happened before

Problems with a heel I had experienced before. In the fall of 2010, I got soreness in my right heel. It was a year where I had run quite a few marathons. My body had otherwise tried to tell me that it had had enough. When I did not take the first warning seriously, the body then chose to give me the sore heel.

In the beginning, it was only when I got up in the morning and walked around indoors. It was not an actual pain, but a tenderness that I wanted to get rid of and that I feared would develop. I tried to run a few times. At first it did not show in my sore heel, but after a few runs I could feel that it would probably not be good to run.

Shockwave

I started going to a physiotherapist who, after a few treatments, started using radio shockwave therapy. This involves the use of an apparatus, which fires high-energy shockwaves in rapid succession into the area to be treated. These shockwaves are purely mechanical and not an electrical treatment form.

Treatment produces an inflammation-like reaction in the treated tissue. The body reacts by increasing the blood circulation and metabolism in the area, thus stimulating and accelerating the body’s own repair processes. The shockwaves break down the damaged tissue, which is then replaced by new tissue.

On 15 May 2021, the second edition of the Peoples Park Marathon – Together Separated was held. Nine marathon runners and seven half marathon runners were registered. By the time the race was over, eight had completed in each category. A heel injury caused Henrik Brandt to change distance along the way.

As was the case in 2020, there was fine support throughout the day. Everyone was happy.
From the morning Henrik Brandt welcomed everyone, followed by the chairman of Roskilde municipality’s Culture and Sports Committee Claus Larsen, who wished the runners a good day.
It was a good day. We did not escape a few small rain showers, but it could not put a stop to the good mood. Everyone was happy for the day’s event. Several expressed participation in a possible third edition. It is not exactly in the maps, but we must see what the future holds.
At the finish line, medals and a really good goodie bag with nice sponsored gifts were handed out. Diplomas were subsequently awarded to each individual runner.
I thank everyone who in their own way supported this race, which was a tribute to The Great Wall Marathon, which the same day should have been run with me as a participant. That I could not complete the full marathon gives me comfort in the fact that this did not happen in China. I hope to be ready for the postponed race on September 25th.

Results

Diploma can be downloaded by clicking on the finish time. Page 2 of the document shows the runner’s lap times.