I was looking forward to running a local 5K a week from this Saturday. For the past week or so I've been sidelined due to minor foot injury/strain. About two weeks ago, I started experiencing pain and stiffness in the sides of my heel. I thought maybe it was a mildly sprained ankle due to the fact I started trail running recently and made one kind of awkward landing on a rock, so I took a couple days off and then stupidly went for an 8-mile run that made the pain much worse accompanied by swelling.
So I finally gave it a whole week off. I saw a physical therapist/sports trainer yesterday who believes it was caused by the very flimsy Altra Escalantes I've been wearing for about half my runs. The mesh upper lets my foot slide back and forth which put strain on the tendons that run down the sides of my calf down to my heels. I love the wide toe box of those shoes (I have bunions) but I could feel the instability she was talking about. She has me doing some foot strengthening exercises and calf/achilles stretches, shocked the area with some electrical stimulation machine, and taped up my foot. It seems to be improving.
Is it a bad idea to start back up with running in a few days with more supportive shoes if the swelling goes down and it continues to feel better? I've been hitting the stairmaster the past couple mornings and I was thinking I could finish my training using the stairmaster for like 30 minutes and then go for a 20 minute run instead of my usual 40-60 minute runs, and be ready for the 5K in 10 days.