Needle Junkie

Well, not that kind of needle.  I am one of the 80% of runners who gets injured every year.  For me, I've been dealing with Achilles issues for the last month.  In August I hurt my left Achilles and ended up taking almost a whole month to get back to where I was before injury and it cost me a race that I really wanted to do.  After two good weeks back in running I was feeling pretty good.  I'd worked up to 9 and then 12 mile runs on the weekends and my weekly mileage was climbing. In fact, in retribution for not being able to do my 10k I decided to just train for a 1/2 marathon and eventually, running with some girls who were on a full marathon training program, figured I might as well jump in with them where they were in mileage (who knows, maybe I'll do a full marathon after all). THEN came my right Achilles.  I finished a 12 mile run with some friends last weekend and by my mid week medium mileage run I could hardly walk.  I had a 13-15 mile run coming up in 4 days and I was not going to miss it.  NOT AGAIN ACHILLES!  I did some online research and discovered that acupuncture had a good base behind assisting with Achilles issues.  I made up my mind to call a chiropractor (the first ever for me) the next day.  Anyway, two days later I received dry needling treatment, which is actually different from acupuncture, in that the needles go through the muscles to release lactic acid and increase blood flow in areas that are tight.  I had about 20 needles in and through my Achilles and calve muscle and then ran 3 miles the next day and 14.6 two days after that!  Pretty amazing.  I went back for a second session today and had my achy left calve muscle treated too.  One more session after this one and I think I will be set.  While this isn't the most pleasant thing I've ever experienced, I think it's very much worth it to not have to take all the time off that I've had to do before.  I tried to take a picture of my leg with all the pins, but I couldn't twist myself that way, so if you are curious google dry needling on Google images.