Sore Achilles Tendon, a Warning?

Recently, I've been plagued with a sore Achilles tendon. For your reference, the Achilles tendon is the ligament that connects your heel to the calf muscle. It's considered as one of the strongest tendons in the human body, and rightfully so because it plays an important role for propulsion of the body while walking and running. Here's a diagram:

When this tendon becomes sore, it can be very crippling. For the last few days, I've been hobbling around as if I had a sprained ankle, overcompensating my strong side for the weak side. It reminded me of little 巧巧 (my cousin's daughter) when she said in Taiwanese, "馬馬 ㄅㄞˋ ㄎㄚ" as she twisted her toy pony's legs in some deformed way. As cute as her reaction is, a sore Achilles tendon is a matter to be taken seriously and with caution.

I am not too sure how I ended up with a sore Achilles. I have a few hypotheses: 1) running that one morning during the week, shortly after I woke up = sleepy and slow body with stiff muscles/tendons; and/or 2) lift session in the evening on the same day where I may have overdone it. It was either (1) or (1)+(2). Nevertheless, I ended up with this undesired result of discomfort and temporary disability.

Since then, I've been researching and reading on causes of a sore Achilles tendon, treatment, prevention, etc. As an individual with athletic interests and habits, I didn't want this to end the freedom of motion and active lifestyle of sports that I enjoy doing. I wanted to make sure I treated this injury correctly and properly, giving my body enough time to recover and taking the proper precautions to not make it worse. Even if it is 100% recovered, I need to also set up preventative measures to strengthen the area of concern so the injury does not return. I probably need to also be aware of my shoes, my running form, the time of day I run, my physical condition, etc., as these are all factors that can cause such pain to return.

Likewise, I related this to our spiritual lives. When things are going well in life, it has to be some kind of indication that our spirituality is "pretty good," which means that we are doing something right and under God's protection and blessings. On the other hand, if something goes wrong in our lives, I would have to guess that there's a reason for that. Then is when we need to think about what's going on in our lives, why it is happening, how we can overcome/handle/treat it, and what we can do to prevent this from happening again. We need to spend time to think and reflect, just like doing research when we get injured and want to get back on our feet, to start playing again.

Looking back, I don't think I've done enough of that. I don't learn from my mistakes so I end up being re-injured. This applies in both my physical and spiritual lives. It can be very frustrating, and it will continue to be until I make a change. Even after changing, we need to make sure we don't ease up, and fall back into our old habits, and re-injuring ourselves. We need to be cautious about everything we do, just like walking on thin ice.

My Achilles tendon is getting better, but that doesn't mean that I can go back to the way I handled myself. I'm going to have to change something in my exercise regime, or do something extra to ensure I don't encounter this sore Achilles again. I can't guarantee that I'll be pain-free (unfortunately, I'm past the years of my prime), but I'm going to make sure that I give all that I've got to keep it that way.