Forums >Health and Nutrition>Mystery spasm
Nearly face-planted on rough asphalt at the end of mile 6 today when without warning, as I took a step with my right foot, it felt as if my right lateral tibial muscle (tendon?) tightened up like in a spasm but no pain and I had NO sense of - or control of - my right foot or lower leg. I was afraid I would not land on the foot in time, and windmilled the other leg, landing safely but causing my left glute/top of ham to have stabbing pain for the next few miles. The incident felt shocking and scary. Finished the run (16 miles) with no further weirdness. Possible causes: nerve in back misfired? leg fatigue? stroke? (ha ha) Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing?
Don't make excuses for why you can't get it done.
Focus on all the reasons why you must make it happen.
runktrun
Yes, I've experienced similar "failings" of limbs, but not to the extent that I nearly fell. I think my issue is due to a hip labral tear, causing instability in the hip joint and, at times, causing swelling and scar tissue buildup around the femoral nerve, which runs along the front of the joint. It was like my leg would just check out for a bit, my quad and foot would feel numb, and each stride was just a wild swing of my leg with no control. Had an EMG to check that the nerves were intact, and they are, so it's probably temporary pressure/pinching. Generally only happens with high training load when I know my hip is irritated.
Be mindful of if and how frequently it happens again, if it's the same leg, getting worse, etc and talk to your doc about it.
Not running for my health, but in spite of it.
Thanks for your input, kilkee. I'll definitely be monitoring it and made a Health Note for today on my Training Log so I can see (if it happens again) if there's any correlation to what I'm doing in training. I'm leaning towards the possibility of it stemming from a pinched nerve in the back or a swollen disk or something since I've had my share of low back issues over the past decade or so. Naturally my back wasn't hurting the last couple days, but it had been twingey for the past couple weeks.
Further on: One week later, ran hard in a HM. Two days after that, an hour into my run, the same leg area that had the mystery spasm started hurting intensely. (right lateral lower leg). I didn't stop to check it out, figuring it was just an after effect of the race. Later that day, I noticed a blue bruise there and puffy swelling going around the front of the leg. Great! So now I have a 2-inch bruise with 1/2-inch white knot in the middle and another smaller bruise about an inch behind it. Obviously ruptured something while running. Can't help but wonder if the spasm incident the week prior was a warning sign. Bizarre. It seems to be better every day, so that's good.
WHOAH, gnarly and fascinating, but sorry you're injured. You should probably get that checked out to rule out any clot issues or nerve damage given the bruising and swelling, and then plan some rehab with a good PT. Posterior Tib tendon, maybe? It probably didn't get tight and snap for no reason...compensating for any imbalance at either end of the chain - ankle/foot or hip - could have continually stressed it and yeah, the earlier spasm was a warning sign it couldn't handle much more. I hope you at least had a good race!
YES! I am really happy with my race result. I wanted to get a measure of where I'm at and see how much benefit I've gotten from my past month or so of introducing some faster paced workouts and - yay! I hit my target pace throughout. Onward to marathon training!
Pictures of the peroneus brevis muscle match the location of the bruise. Interesting. I'll monitor it closely. I've been running slow all week and it hasn't hurt at all. They say that your Recovery Pace finds YOU and that is so true! Still I don't think I'll push for a faster workout until this injury has resolved. Right now, the high costs of medical care prevent me from going for eval and PT; but I think I can get it figured out. You gave me a good jumping-off point in your last post. So, thanks for that, kilkee.
You're welcome and congrats on the fine race.
Yes, the outside of your lower calf up around the back of the ankle bone would be your peroneals. Be careful about coming back too quickly and irritating the tendons; they are difficult to rehab.