Team Cross Runs

Foto Friday

Starting Ice Bike Racing early February 2010

Curing Plantar Fasciitis

After a year suffering through the dreaded Plantar Fasciitis I can say that there is only two certain ways to get rid of it.

1) Never walk on it, i.e. don’t leave your bed.

2) Cut off the ailing foot.

I looked through my running log and it was a year ago today that I first mentioned foot pain and took a day off. I have tried a lot of things in the past year, all to no avail.  I’ve done physical therapy and spent a lot of time at the doctor’s office listening in as the doctor and therapists share with the residents about Plantar Fasciitis.

I’ve broken this post into three segments – immediate actions, intermediate actions, and last ditch/extreme measures.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED

1) Stop running.  Take a few days (weeks) off immediately to give your foot a chance to heal. I recommend swimming to keep the cardio strong.  Everyone says it is ok to bike, but I’d be really cautious.

2) Stop walking around barefoot.  Nothing is nicer than kicking off your shoes and letting the old dogs relax.  However, walking around barefoot can exacerbate Plantar Fasciitis.  I’d recommend some nice Crocs or slippers with about an inch of padding to protect your heel.

3) Take ibuprofen.  I’m not a doctor.  My doctor recommended taking 800mg (4 tablets) 3x’s a day with food for 2 weeks.  This will help take down the inflammation.  The consistency builds up the amount of medicine in the body which helps it work faster.

4) Check & Change Shoes.  All of them.  Even if they are brand new I would recommend buying new running shoes, maybe switching brands or styles.  Go to a running specialty store and have them analyze your running (after resting for a few days).  Then check all of your other shoes for wear.  If they show a little excessive wear – get rid of them.  I know its expensive but it is better to be healed or buy new shoes?

5) Roll out the foot.  I used a can of soup for a long time before buying a more advanced roller. In a fluid motion roll the jar under your foot from heel to the ball back and forth for a minute or so. Really dig into the heel. Do this two times a day.  One of the times you should soak the foot in warm water first.

6) Stretch the arch.  Place your foot on the opposite knee.  Taking the 5 toes bend them towards the same knee.  This will stretch the fascia. Hold for 30 seconds.

7) Ice. At the minimum put ice on the heel. The best option is to take a frozen dixie cup of ice and massage the affected area.  I just rub an ice cube into it until it melts.  Another option which combines step 5 and 7 is to roll out your foot with a frozen water bottle.

Night Splint. I’ve used both the Strassburg Sock (my review or Amazon) and the Dorsi-Wedge.  Obviously, neither worked.  I felt the Strassburg Sock was easier to wear.  My sports doc (who works at the University of MN) felt like the sock allowed too much room for “cheating”, etting the foot move around or not wearing it properly. Other night splints on Amazon.

9) Stretch. Obviously stretching the entire body is always an important part of the routine.  It is important to stretch out the calves, achilles, and hamstrings.  I’ve used both the foam roller and the stick to do this.

Optional:

10) Massage.  Especially the calves and foot. This actually feels really good, I should go get one again.

11) Hot Tub.  Sitting in the hot tub really can feel great and helps relax the muscles.  I need to do this again too!

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INTERMEDIATE ACTIONS

1) Physical Therapy. This encompasses a wide variety of tactics and exercises.  Most of mine focused on hip, core, and ankle strength.  It is important to have a strong core to help hold your body together and in proper alignment.  This Running Times article covers a lot of the hip work that I was doing.

2) Iontophoresis (wikipedia). Actually a part of physical therapy, but this takes a steroid like dexamethasone and electrically injects into the skin.  This works well for a lot of people, but loses effectiveness after 8 treatments.

3) Taping.  I had mixed success with taping my foot while running and walking around.   I used this method. The idea is that this helps reduce the load that your fascia is forced to carry.

4) Inserts/Orthodics. I’m not really sure where to put this. I’ve heard of people having success with it, but I haven’t with inserts.  Also, with orthodics you’ll become dependent on them.  It might “fix” the problem but not change the body issues creating the problem. Treating the symptoms, not the problem.

5) Active Release Technique. ART, as it is called, releases the fasciia and other “tight” areas the cause Plantar Fasciitis.  I’ve heard that it works well and the Ironman offers ART Certifications, but my sports doc wasn’t aware of this non-traditional treatment.  It is often offered by chiropractors.  More information can be found here. Locally, some of my friends recommend Dr. Folske.

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LAST RESORT/EXTREME MEASURES

I’m sure there are more than these 2 but I don’t know of them.

1) Cortisone shot. Or other steroid injection. This injects a steroid into the fascia which speeds healing.  This is not a long term fix and masks the pain – quite well I’ve heard.  It has at least 2 major drawbacks:  tearing the fascia and atrophying the fat pad in the heel.  My sports doc really doesn’t like to use this option.  She thinks the long-term risks often outweigh the short-term gains.

2) Surgery. Yuck, who wants to go under the knife.  Basically they cut the fascia and it heals itself and is stronger.  This is the ultimate last resort. My thought is that if I just put my foot in a cast for 6 weeks I’d probably get the same results.

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Have you had success with any other treatments?

Double Digit Week

I finally hit double digits again this week in my running mileage!  Yes an amazing 11.9 miles!  And over three runs.  My foot still doesn’t hurt while running, but during non-running times it does, some of the time.  Basically, my foot feels fine for about half to 3/4 of the day.  While at work my foot usually starts hurting around lunch time.  I’ve been up and down on it a lot, walking around, etc.

Monday was President’s Day and a day off.  So I ran 3 miles on the Greenway, with about 3 inches of fresh snow on the ground.  It was a pretty fluffy snow.  For some reason (holiday?) the Greenway hadn’t been plowed, which is fairly unusual since it was 10am.  I thought running in the bike tracks would feel better, but it actually felt better to run on the fresh snow.  So that’s what I did.

Tuesday was my last appointment for Iontopherisis. While the treatments did help, my foot still isn’t healed.  This time she even did an ultrasound on it for awhile.  I was really hoping these treatments would work.

Yes, I didn’t run again until Friday morning. A lack of motivation to get up in the morning and a fairly busy evening schedule kept me off the roads.  I’ve also been real hesitant to go when it is dark, because of the ice and wanting/needing to protect my foot.  The sun is slowly peaking up earlier and earlier and on Friday morning I finally got the motivation to go for it.  6:30 am 3.1 miles on the Greenway.  We’ve been having warmer temps and sunny days so there is a lot of snow melting.  Obviously, it re-freezes at night so there were lots of frozen streams to navigate.  I wore my heart rate monitor for an average of 166.

A friend of mine hosted a meeting on Saturday about Team World Vision and then we went for a 5.5 mile run afterwards.  We ran from the Nokomis Community Center heading East toward the river.  He needed to run 5 and we were both feeling pretty good when I looked down at my watch and we were in the 2.8 range!  The Minnehaha Parkway trails also have a lot icy patches but are overall in pretty good shape.  It was a balmy 24 and very sunny.

Sunday was another beautiful day, but we stayed inside.

Did you have a good week?

One Post Defining Super Sets from a training program I used to use.

Foto Friday

Hoar Frost at Stewart Park February 2010

Shoe Reviews

I’ve often thought that the shoe reviews in Runners World and other running magazines were fairly useless.  I guess if you understand everything about your foot and shoes then it might be helpful.  But I would agree with others that it has become more of a marketing scheme than really useful information.  But if I were offered a free pair of shoes to review, I’d be happy to test them out.

I came across this recent posting at Running Times: No Need for Shoe Awards that talked about why RT doesn’t give out shoe awards or have a special shoe issue.  Below are two great quotes:

The primary reason Running Times doesn’t present quarterly awards is because “editor’s choice” and “best new shoe” awards don’t serve the readers who might be in the process of figuring out which new shoes to buy. It’s based either on one person’s specific viewpoint of a shoe, the general or numerical consensus of a wear-test group or a collection of vague and very general shoe characteristics that the magazine deems “best.” But best for what type of runner or gait or running style is it best? That’s not meant to be overly harsh toward magazines that do give awards; while those awards are probably just meant to be a guidance tool for readers, the problem we have is that they could be giving improper guidance to an eager runner who thinks they really need a shoe that a magazine calls the latest and greatest instead of letting his or her body tell them what works best.

So why do we publish shoe reviews in the first place? Ideally, it’s a way to inform our passionate readers about what’s out there so they can decide for themselves what works best for them. (Similar to how we publish stories about training plans from a variety of athletes and coaches. Take new ideas and apply them to your personal running experience.) Our shoe guides are intended to offer insights as to what will be available at stores, while also touching on industry trends that might (or might not) improve your running.

The bottom line is that the way to find the best shoe for you is to do so by “feel” based on how you run and not how a shoe feels when you’re sitting on a bench in the store or when you’re wearing it for everyday life — school, work, chores, errands, going to the mall, etc. (And by the way, you shouldn’t be wearing your running shoes for anything but running. Walking breaks down shoes differently and more quickly and can ultimately lower the performance value of those shoes or alter your gait ever so slightly. If you like the feel of your running shoes that much, buy a second pair for mowing the lawn or walking the dog.)

What do you think? Do you find the “shoe review” issues helpful?

I usually stick with a shoe that has worked well for me in the past and talk with someone at a running store about the different shoes.  I have also used this chart created by Brooks (mentioned previously) that compares different brand’s shoes so that you can transition between them.

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Valentines Snow Shoe

We took our snow shoes out to Lebanon Hills Regional Park for a short little snow shoe and to enjoy the beautiful sun.  It snowed a few more inches later in the day!  We also stopped at Pardon My French, the traditional stopping point post-Lebanon.

So here’s the video:

Getting Motivated

It has still been a struggle to get up in the morning and go for a run.  The sun is starting to creep up earlier and earlier each morning and that is helping.  Plus I’ve got my morning routine down and I just need to take the first step and break it.  Another more legitimate excuse is that after the bad experience of running on unplowed paths, I’m being extra picky about running surfaces.  I’ve talked previously about my struggle to get up in the morning and making it to the gym.  But with one more physical therapy appointment my morning schedule should open up a little bit!

I did manage a whooping 8 miles this week over 2 runs.   The first was 4 miles on the indoor track at the YWCA.  It is 6 laps per mile.  I was planning to go workout at the YWCA after work and it also happened that my school’s basketball teams were playing a double header there too.  I missed the girls game but got to see over half of the boy’s game while running laps above them.  Some of the students noticed me and started yelling “go Mr Cross!”  The next day one of the girls said, “Mr Cross you are too skinny to be working out!”  I thanked her and went on my way.

The second 4 miler was from my house to the Midtown Greenway.  It is plowed by the county and they do an excellent job.  It was a beautiful morning to go out and run.  It was cold and windy, but we had a freezing fog so there was a beautiful layer of frost/ice on everything, see some pictures here.  It was a simple out and back and overall the footing wasn’t too bad.  Some icy spots and I stepped into some slush that wasn’t frozen solid.  A good comfortable run.

For Valentine’s Day we went to Lebanon Hills and did a few miles of snow shoeing.  I forgot my garmin, but we had fun wandering off the trail, walking across lakes, and enjoying the beautiful morning.  Shortly after we got done another snow storm moved in!

Did you have a good week? Any motivation tips?

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