My right heel problem started during my preparations for Ironman New Zealand in February 2006, when I had a month off from work, just for training down under. I tried to run every day together with either a bike  or a swim session. That was probably a bit much for my heel and it has never really recovered since then. I have taken breaks from running now and then, but probably not long enough. I get a bit restless and depressed if I can't get out and do it. Another thing is that there were a few marathons around in Asia (14 of them actually) that I wanted to capture when I was stationed there, so I pushed my luck a bit by running with poor preparations and some pain, plus eating antiinflammatoric medicin. Not very clever you might say, but I got some other pleasure or satisfaction out of it. Nice memories at least.

This weekend I read the latest Runners World magazine, where Claes Runheim (f.d. Åkesson, Viasat Sport) had written about exactly the same problem in his chronical article. Exactly the same diagnosis as me and he also have the same philosophy about it as me. Instead of having some dodgy surgery done, he's enduring some pain, using ice bandages, antiinflammatoric drugs and continues to run in the same stubborn manner. He might consider trying chinese acupuncture. That 's something I haven't tried either. Instead I had ultrasound treatment for a couple of weeks in Malaysia and a special stretching program made by a physiotherapist. Claes has also cut a hole in the back of his shoe to ease the pressure, to avoid pain.

Currently I also believe that instead of resting, it might be better to increase the amount of training. Run more regulary, like 5-6 days a week, instead of 2-3. I actually feel rather OK today after running 13 km's 2 days in a row, so hmmmm... Let's see how I managed to fit in more training in my calendar and life. That's the challenge at the moment.

Claes Runheim is a very dedicated runner. I met him, dressed for running, in the reception of Gothia Towers, not so long ago and gave him some inspiring comments about running.