VORTEQ Saved My 50K!
I had been having some trouble with my right Achilles tendon a few weeks before the Smith Rock Ascent 50k. I was icing it a few days per week with a gel freezer pack wrapped in a hand towel. Our freezer is set at 0 degrees. Ten days out I iced my Achilles for about 30 minutes with the gel pack only covered by a thin bedsheet, then went to sleep. I woke up multiple times in the night with it hurting more and more. When I got up the next morning I saw why-I had a blister the size of a quarter on the skin over the back of my heel and swelling around the area. Frostbite! How was I going to complete a trail 50k with 4,800 feet of elevation gain with my heel like this with only 10 days to recover?
That same day (Wednesday) I received a Vorteq treatment at Cascade Wellness Technologies. The swelling went down significantly. I decided to rent a machine so that I could treat my heel/Achilles every day until my race so I could hopefully complete it. I picked it up, on Friday and I used the machine almost an hour every day until the race. A few days I treated for about an hour morning and evening. Each day I got better. I did not run until the Thursday night before the Saturday race. I applied a blister bandage and tried a on couple different pairs of shoes. I picked the best ones and ran a mix of flat, up, and down for 3 miles on my treadmill and it felt ok.
On race day I put on a fresh blister bandage and ran my 2nd best 50K (5:47:13)! My Achilles did not bother me at all and my heel only hurt a small amount while walking up the steepest hills. I did not get a new blister.
Thank you VORTEQ for saving my 50K!