Don't Call It A Comeback—Yet...

 Since running the "A" Mountain Half Marathon in late October, 2019 (and probably some time before), I've had trouble with my left heel, with pain in the back of the heel near where the Achilles tendon attaches. At most, the pain was maybe a 1 on the 0-10 scale, perhaps sometimes a 2, but was present with basically every step in shoes (with the back of the shoe touching the heel). Every run, every walk (usually I walk the dogs at least once per day), completing the Boston Marathon in October of 2021—it wasn't bad, but it was always there. Even when, say mountain biking, if the foot was jostled against the back of the shoe, it hurt.

In the first few months I tried cutting back on the running, switching to different shoes, icing, and so on—to no avail. During the pandemic, I swore that I'd go to see a podiatrist if it got bad—but it never got worse, it gradually got a little bit better (but definitely limited my mileage and made any kind of faster pace / intensity impossible). I didn't do any long runs for more than a year; I ran/walk at Boston. However, it became a problem that was limited to the first half-hour or so of activity—and afterwards. I began to take warm-up more seriously, and that helped. I had signed up for some shorter races knowing that if I warmed up properly, I could make it through—the issue then being dealing with some degree of pain afterward. I got through the races (2021 Tucson Half Marathon, 2021 Colossal/Vail AZ Trail Half Marathon, 2022 Fleet Feet AZ Trail Race) and they did not make things worse. I even made it through the 25-mile Old Pueblo Endurance Run in March 2022 (with quite a bit of walking in the latter half, due to limited training). When a car rear-ended me in January of 2022, one of the ways I knew I was okay was that, after a few seconds of shock wore off, the only thing that hurt was my heel (I was coming home from a trail run workout).

I also discovered that massaging the calf (very hard) would make the pain go away. So the cause was somehow related to a tight muscle pulling on the Achilles which pulled on tissues in the heel. This strengthened my resolve to work on stretching and strengthening, which I have done for the past few months, and that is making a large difference (however my running volume is still low and lacks intensity).