Peroneal Tendon Experiences

Tough and tricky injury to deal with, especially if you let it get bad. But if you handle it right, it will heal. Right now you're not letting it heal.

* Stop cycling. Stop jogging around the block every few days.

* Continue to ice it like crazy. Three times a day. Make sure you're icing a large enough area.

* Take ibuprofen. Twice a day with meals.

* If you have to exercise, try swimming. But don't "point your toes" to kick more effectively. Just relax the lower half of your legs. Otherwise just shut down for a couple weeks at least.

* Don't even think about jogging or biking until you've been completely pain free for at least a week.

I had a peroneal tendon flare up 1 month before Boston. Pulling out was an option I refused to consider. I was close enough to the taper I could take a day off here and there and start dropping my miles. That helped. Icing and ibuprofen helped too, but were not magic bullets. Whenever I returned to running the pain returned. After a couple of weeks of fighting through it I was forced by travel circumstances to run on a treadmill. The difference was unbelievable. For some reason the consistent, straight surface of the treadmill didn’t bother the peroneal tendon. Within a few days it was feeling much better and I was able to get to the starting line reasonably healthy and PR in epically bad conditions. I took about a month off after Boston. I’m back on the roads and it feels fine.

It’s a pain! Took me close to 6 months to get rid of it, but I was able to run through it. Some things I did that helped it:

1. Massage deep (if you can) the calf muscle and all down the outer leg from the calf to the ankle. This is the main therapy! Trust me. Your issue begins with the tightness in the calf/outer calf muscle.

2. Ice the outer part of your foot behind and underneath your outer ankle bone that sticks out.

3. Prior to your run, and as often as you can throughout the day, make your foot go in ‘circles’, both ways if you can. I could only do them clockwise.

Once I got aggressive with these three things, all pain was gone within 3 weeks. Prior to I was farting around with other stretching and stuff but until I was consistent with these three above, it didn’t heal.

Good luck.

va coach wrote:

Tough and tricky injury to deal with, especially if you let it get bad. But if you handle it right, it will heal. Right now you're not letting it heal.

* Stop cycling. Stop jogging around the block every few days.

* Continue to ice it like crazy. Three times a day. Make sure you're icing a large enough area.

* Take ibuprofen. Twice a day with meals.

* If you have to exercise, try swimming. But don't "point your toes" to kick more effectively. Just relax the lower half of your legs. Otherwise just shut down for a couple weeks at least.

* Don't even think about jogging or biking until you've been completely pain free for at least a week.

Does biking actually hurt it? I feel zero pain while pedaling.

Not at all.

Thanks. So massaging, icing, and ankle rotations helped the most?

Did you take 3 weeks off completely or did you do some cross-training? A poster mentioned on here that I should not bike...but I experience approximately zero pain while biking.

I took 8 days off, only biked. Then one week of every other day, then two weeks of two days running, one day off.

All of this while still doing the three things I outlined that worked for me.

A little background just for perspective. I’m 54 and typically run 40-55 miles per week. Just FYI as I don’t know if this injury is more common with older runners or not.

Good luck and would like to hear how your improvement is progressing, should you be inclined to update all.