plantar faciitis, damn you.
Ok, my right heel is still kinda sore. There is some slight throbbing going on. I'm really bummed and hope that I am not developing plantar faciitis.Last night I was talking with Hubster on the phone and asked him if he could buy me a pair of Born shoes for work so that my heel would be extra cushioned. I accompanied a friend on a shopping excursion this weekend and she's somewhat of a shoe fanatic. She told me that nurses and other people that stand on their feet for hours on end prefer to wear Born brand shoes.
I guess they are quasi top of the line. I wouldn't know much about shoes. All I know is that it's time to retire my Doc Marten boots for awhile. Christ, I've had them since I was a senior in high school. (Sentimental attachments). They still look good. (in my eyes).
I need to take better care of my feet because they're taking a beating they have never quite known before. They do a lot for me.
Anyhow, I'd appreciate some advice on how to heal my feet (fast). Are there certain things I should avoid doing to prevent it from worsening? What remedies should I be applying to help the healing along?
I was going to do my 4 tonight but I'm going to skip today again. Recovery is key, here.
Thanks, Phil...for offering your help. :)
*whimper....*
P.S. My running shoes are still quite new. I've been running in them for almost 3 months now. They are well cushioned. I don't think it's the shoes.
etched in stone by carmen @ 7:34 AM
10 Comments:
That sucks! I've battled that injury over a year and finally defeat it. After a year of so with the nagging injury I started researching and came across this article in Men's Health magazine. The article was about the Tarahumara Indians from South America and the people can run like 50 to 60 miles a day. Their transportation is running on a daily basis. They have no history of running related injury. Plus all their running has been barefoot or with sandals.
So the whole idea is to embrace "The best shoe may be no shoe at all". To this, I started to understand that my feet were spoiled from all the cushy shoes out there and I had weak feet and calves. Meaning I relied too heavily on my shoes and didn't concentrate on my feet landing.
So I started using the Nike free 4.0 and within 3 month, my running form has changed, shorter strides, stronger feet, stronger calves, less usage of my hamstrings and less effort with running now. Now I can run 40+ miles a week with no problem or even run everyday pain free.
I'll have to dig up the article online but I did find the article in Men's Health.
Don't be surprised to see me running barefoot in a marathon...lol.
FYI:
http://www.illiteratewithdrawal.com/2005/06/running-without-shoes/
Link to the author's blog:
http://barefootted.com
Dayom, he ran boston in 3.20 barefoot...well, almost.
OMG, Carmen. I think the Don Martens are the bad boys. Time to get rid of them. So sorry! :( Ice, ice, ice!
Dawnb gave this link to someone yesterday and I found stuff for my foot on it - to help relax knots in my legs and feet. Running Times Hope it helps!
I had plantar fascitis years ago and it cleared up on its own. I have found that almost all of my feet problems are caused by my non-running shoes! That makes me mad because I don't even wear cute shoes. Well, they are cute to me, but I'm not out in fancy open-toed heels or nothing.
Good luck!
Carmen
As I said yesterday, I’m not sure that you have plantar fasciitis; however, let’s assume you do. One classic tell-tell sign of plantar fasciitis is pain on the underside of your foot (especially in front of the heel, but also in the arch) first thing in the morning when you get up. In fact, the pain can be so severe that you hobble around at first; however, the pain goes away as your feet warm up while you’re walking. I’m wondering if you might just have a bit of bursitis for the pounding on your heal. In either case, there are a couple of things to do relieve the problem.
In the short term, ice the area for 10 minutes and than massage the inflamed area for a few minutes. Make sure you get the area very cold. Let the area warm up and repeat. The longer term solution is exercise. One problem with running is that it does very little to strengthen the muscles in your feet. The exercise I do to help my plantar fasciitis is called a “toe squincher”. To perform the exercise you need only point your toes up, hold for a second or two and then quickly curl your toes under very hard and hold the curl for 10 seconds. Relax … repeat 5 times. I do these a couple of times a day. Since I started doing these exercises my plantar fasciitis hasn’t been a major problem. This exercise not only strengthens the muscles in your foot that support the ligament, but also stretches the plantar tendon. Plus it just feels good.
Also, plantar fasciitis is not caused by heel strikes (at least I couldn’t find a legitimate reference that indicated such). The most likely cause of the injury is excessive subtalar joint pronation (turning your ankle in while running). This is what happened to me a couple of years ago. The last leg of a 50 mile Adventure Race was a 10 mile run across the desert around Lake Pleasant. The surface was very uneven and I really pushed way too hard. I’m wondering if your trail running is putting extra stress on your ankles and causing additional stress on the plantar fascia? If you’re trails are very uneven, you might want to switch back to smoother surface until the problem goes away.
Good luck.
Hang in there and stretch a lot.
Working on pressure points in my calf (from the link I put above) really helped my heal. Not sure of the cause of yours, but this is worth a try. For heal pain, they have you lay down with one knee bent up (not the one with the foot that hurts) and then you put the calf of your bad foot on your knee - press and move around until you find the knot (will hurt like the dickens). Then press on the knot (it will hurt) until it releases (stops hurting or decreases a lot) and move on to find another.
Also, drink lots of water - water helps move the bad stuff out of your muscles.
hope this helps!
Thanks for all the help! The advice has really helped me and I would never had known about my poor form without all your input. Thanks again everyone!
More miles for me.
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