The Incredibly Fashionable Plantar Fasciitis

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Plant-a-whatis?

Silly me. Of course you know what it is. Plantar Fasciitis is the most fashionable runner’s injury!

To quote the recently-gone-viral Runner’s World article, it’s many a runner’s “arch enemy.” Ha!

Simply put, plantar fasciitis is a pain in the bottom of your heel. It starts there, anyway, then moves towards the arch of your foot and you feel like your ligaments down there are pulled tight like guitar strings.

If you’re lucky, it hurts a little at the start of your run — or right after you get out of bed in the morning — then goes away as your muscles and ligaments warm up.

And as you can guess, I speak all that from experience. But don’t take my word for it, go read about plantar fasciitis here.

I self-diagnosed myself recently — and very proudly so, I might add; my symptoms are textbook. Here’s a handy visual guide that will walk you through the causes and symptoms:

Heel Pain? A Plantar Fasciitis Guide

Lucky for me, I seem to have a fairly mild case of this popular injury. It’s more irritating than sidelining. But if that pesky inflamation turns acute, I’ve heard it can be a total b’tch.

So, word: better take care of it!

I’ve been icing regularly for the past two weeks, stretching and rolling, and doing some of the exercises in this video from Runner’s World:

Also lucky for me, I’m not training for anything big right now and can afford to take a few easy-running days, focusing instead on swimming and biking.

With some TLC, those footsies should be all good to go for the epic adventure of the month: Ragnar Napa Valley!

–>So that’s all I have to say about the plant-a-whatis. Have you ever had it? Or any other pesky injuries? How did you deal with them?<-- And because I've been dropping off the face of the blogosphere a lot recently, here's what my workouts have been like since our trip back home from Disneyland last week:

Monday and Tuesday post-race: took off

Wednesday: Roughly 3.5 miles in San Francisco, nice flat course (first 1.5 miles of the Giant race, roughly, and back). Avg pace: 8:37; or maybe not. Love running in San Francisco. But hate how my GPS signal is always messed up (see image below, I definitely did not run over the tops of those buildings). It bugs me, not knowing exactly how far and how fast I ran. How do my fellow data-obsessed SF running peeps deal with this?

#FirstWorldRunnerProblems

Thursday: 1.76 mile swim (about 1 hr 20 mins, forgot my watch)

Friday: Lunchtime ride, 18.4 miles in 1hr 08 min.

Saturday: Longer ride, roughly 25 miles (paused Garmin, forgot to restart for a few miles… gah!); followed by a quick 5K run. And by that, I mean quick for me: 24:58, 8:03 avg pace. Faster than I’ve gone in any 5K race, though that’s not saying much because I don’t do that many 5Ks.

Sunday: Rest

Monday: Swim; 1.7 miles in 1 hr 4 min

Tuesday (today): Ran to gym, 3 miles in 26:27, 8:45 avg pace. Then 2-mile swim in 1 hr 20 min.

What have y’all been up to lately?

One thought on “The Incredibly Fashionable Plantar Fasciitis

  • June 18, 2018 at 4:42 am
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    I know this post is a few years old, but I wanted to say what a great infographic. I suffer from plantar fasciitis as well, and I am looking for good information where ever I can find it. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply

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