And that makes five!

My massage therapist chides me every time I'm prone on the table that my calves and hamstrings are "super-tight" and that I need to stretch more.

I say I do stretch! But the tightness just doesn't seem to go away. So I just ignore it and hope that nothing bad happens. Well, it appears that the chickens have come home to roost.

I've mentioned previously that I've run through (sic) pretty much the whole gamut of running injuries at some point or other. Turns out after adequately addressing and preventing the previous 4 types of injuries I've experienced before, I missed a common one along the way, and it's decided to ... make its presence felt.

From the crepitus, I think I have Achilles paratendonitis.

It figures that the weakest link is always the one that you ignore while dealing with all of the other moving parts. Well, looks like I can't ignore it any longer.

Turns out that tight gastrocnemius and soleus muscles are a risk factor for injuries of the Achilles tendon. I'm not exactly in pain right now, but there's a niggling discomfort when I walk and it gets painful enough during running that I have to stop a few minutes into a run. Oh, and my calves are still "super-tight".

For some reason, injuries frequently strike me when I resume running after a hiatus, the most recent one of which was my conference/vacation trip. I managed to squeeze in a grand total of just one run during the two weeks I was away (and it was a brilliant one, in cool weather with fall colors in New Hampshire).

Well, it appears that I'll have to lay off the running for a spell while working up a more serious stretching routine.

And I sooo need to make an appointment with my therapist post-haste.