I ran in a pair of Neuton’s on a treadmil and I’ve had achilles pain in my right heal ever since(I will never run in them again). It wasn’t the first time I ran in them and I only did an hour, but it apparently was all it took to sideline me. First I took two weeks off to let it heal and then it felt fine, so I took advantage of a nice day and did ten miles outside in my regular running shoes… I felt pretty good until I stopped and then it was quite painful. I’ve soaked it in icewater, taken Ibuprofen, and worn compression socks while staying off the treadmil or running path. It’s been two weeks again and I did a ride on my trainer and I could feel soreness again… is there anyone out there with some advice for me? It’s not bad enough for a doctor visit, but I think it will be if I run on it like I want to, and of course this feeling of falling waaaaaaaay behind on training is really starting to mess with my head with race season right around the corner for us mid-western racers. ANY idea’s are appreciated!
First off it will take time to heal, you should look at augmenting your training to stay fit without setting you back more, in other words swim and run, but be really conservative with the running. I would suggest getting orthotics, not sure if you have them already, but if you don’t they are wonderful if made properly. Remember that tendons are not very vascular so if hurt they take time to heal, you can not “run through” that sort of pain. I would see a PT personally and try and deturmin what happend in there.
Wow, I thought we were done with all the achilles/soleus/gastroc injuries and Newtons?
Anyway, with your history, likely just tendonitis from a training error. Can take up to 6 weeks to respond though (yeah, I know - not a realistic amount of time off for most triathletes, but …)
How to help Achilles injury along:
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Go to work and steal a bunch of dixie cups from the water cooler.
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Fill each of them and put in your freezer
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Tear off the paper and use the ice to massage your Achilles for ~15 minutes twice a day.
This gives you both the benefits of icing and breaking up the scar tissue in there, and it’s painful which I always thinks means therapy is working. 
work back up slowly, resting is good but jumping right back to 10 miles even though the aerobic fitness is there can put you right back where you started, i find that when my achillies is acting up that bike and swim as much as I want with no violent efforts on the bike and then easing in the running with run walk combos for a few weeks (run 3 min walk 2 min for 10-15 min shut it down ice and if it holds with no pain increase duration the next run then go to 4 min run 1 min walk, etc…) works well and overall I don’t seem to lose too much run specific fitness, sometimes adding in some pool running helps keep the running muscle memory although that is by far my most hated form of exercise ever??? Good luck, sounds like you may be back to normal in a few weeks if you take it ez…
Thanks for the input…everyone. I was afraid of what kind of feedback I might get. Six weeks is definately not what I wanted to hear, but on the other hand it is a little comforting since I’ve been off it for two weeks already and I can ride my bike and get caught up after taking the winter off from riding. I also started taking glucosimine and fish oil again for help with recovery. Also I didn’t think about the massaging effect of rubbing ice on it verses just soaking it in icewater. Thanks!
Eccentric stretches…stand on the ‘injured’ leg on a step. Lower down so your heal is below the step. Use both feet to push yourself back up. Do 15-20 reps 3-4 times a day.
Foam roll all the way down the outside of your leg above the knee, then below the knee, more to the front of the leg. Use a tennis ball right in the middle of the calf. When you feel like you want to scream you’ll know you’ve hit the right spot. I can usually feel a release from the bottom of my foot to my hip when I’ve got the tennis ball in the right place.
I’ve dealt with achilles problems for over 2 years now. When I stop rolling for more than 3-4 days it comes back. Usually rolling a couple times for 20 minutes each and a days worth of eccentric stretches makes it better.
I had serious chronic AT that would not go away in early 2007. When I started to do the eccentric stretches regularly, it went away. My PT gave me an article that talked about a study saying the stretches reduced the size of small capillaries in the AT and this reduced the pressure.
Thanks for the tip! I’ll start today!
Yes, do these! Eccentric Exercises work. Do them more than 1x per day too.
Do the heal drops very slowly! This helped me through this injury.