On Tuesday morning I woke up with the alarm and felt very awake so I jumped out of bed and got a 5k loop in.  It felt pretty good.  I need to be setting my alarm earlier, because it is hard to get even a 3 mile run in as well as the PT and stretching that I need to be doing.  I was very happy to run in the morning!

I didn’t run again until Thursday.  I knew that if I wanted to get the run in I would just have to do it right after work, but also knew that I still wouldn’t have a lot of time.  So I ran home from work.  It ended up being farther than I remembered but was a good 4 mile run.  It took a little while to get warmed up and relaxed (maybe hampered by the fact I was running with my wallet, cell phone, and keys).  It was 39 degrees so I opted to run home in shorts! A little cold on my knees but it felt great.

My third run was the Sunday morning 6.5 with the guys around the Get in Gear loop.  We split into two groups about a mile or so into it and I opted to stay with the back group and we had a nice and relaxed run.  It was overcast but still 36 so another great morning to be out on the trails.

Overall it was a pretty long week. Several late nights and long days made for a pretty exhausted guy come Friday night.  Though we enjoyed watching Invictus,  which brought back memories of my time in South Africa.

As the title says, I’m ready to start increasing my mileage.  I’m going to do this by adding a 4th day of running, though probably not this week.  I’m going on a 2 night, 3 day field trip with 104 7th graders to Wolf Ridge.  Should be a lot of fun, but don’t know if I’ll have the time to sneak in a run.  There will also still be significant snow on the ground there too.   I need to pick a race to train for so that I have that extra motivation to get out there.

How was your week? What is your next race?

This Week’s One Post is a short preview of the Human Race 8k that I wrote in 2008 when I signed up for it.  Back in January, I thought I might be in shape to run it this year, though it isn’t looking good on that front.  Probably not a good idea to run the 5k either.

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• Curing Plantar Fasciitis (teamcrossworld.com)

February was a better month for running.  While generally I struggle with the motivation to get up and run, especially in the morning, I doubled my monthly mileage from January.  February saw 35.4 miles added to my shoes.  I hit double digits for weekly mileage at 11.9.  March should be a good month to continue ramping up the mileage.  My longest run was 6.5 miles with the guys on a sunny, Sunday morning.  February also marked the one-year anniversary of having Plantar Fasciitis, check out my 18 steps to try to get rid of it.

I’ve set a few random goals for the year:

Run Around All Named Bodies of Water in Minneapolis

I didn’t add any new bodies of water, though I did run the Get in Gear loop two times which takes out a section of the Mississippi River.

Read the Entire Bible in a Year

This was tough this month.  Partly because February only has 28 days, but also because this month included reading the entire books of Exodus and Leviticus. Luckily, the legalism of the Old Testament is balanced with reading from Matthew and the grace found in Jesus.

Read a Book a Month

I failed on this one.  I picked a small book called Enjoying Prayer. It is only 140 pages long, but the format and topic made it a little hard to finish.  Its setup to read a chapter at a time with thought provoking questions, not like a novel. I should finish it soon and get a book for March.

Blog Regularly

I only posted 4 times at my personal blog, oops.  I posted regularly on here and that’s more important for you!  I did make some updates to my blog theme.  What do you think? I continue to do well on my Project 365 (taking and posting 1 picture a day).

Other things of note… February was a busy month all around.  It seemed like there was something going on almost every night.  I’m on the board of the Young Non-Profit Network for the Twin Cities (YNPN-TC) and we had a busy month welcoming new board members.

One Post this week is about Running Groups, I really enjoy the group I run with.

The most popular post in February was Treatments of Plantar Fasciitis, again!

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?

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.

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?

One Post: 3 Reasons I Bike

In general though it feels like the iontopherisis is working!  So that is a very good sign.  It is a slow gradual process and I’m feeling slow gains on overall pain.  I’ve already had 5 treatments and you stop seeing benefits after 8.  I feel like my hips and ankles are getting stronger (two major areas of weakness that can impact plantar fascitis).

I started co-teaching a leadership class for 6th graders this week and it is going pretty well.  One of the students said, “this hour seems to go by so fast!”  I’ll take it.  We are currently getting more snow so I may have to run indoors, yuck. We also went to the City of Lakes Loppet and Art Shanty Project.

How’d your training go?

One post is actually a Foto Friday from the 2009 City of Lakes Loppet.  This picture will actually be on exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art from February 19 – June 19 as part of the Foot in the Door exhibit.

That’s three run each around 3 miles.  The conditions have been kind of crappy but I’m not going to complain. My foot actually feels pretty good.  I had my first Iontophoresis appointment this week and that helped tremendously.  Simply stated it is electrically putting steroids into my heel.

I only had a 3 day work week due to the MLK holiday and a record keeping day for teachers (my position doesn’t require me to work those days).  So I ran at Pike Island on Monday on the snowy/icy winter hiking trail.  It didn’t feel bad but I was a little sore the  next day.  I also ran on the West River Rd from 36th Street down to the Wabun Picnic Area and looped back.  Still fairly icy.  For both runs I wore my YakTrax.

I was planning to go skiing on Sunday, but the rain from Friday and Saturday didn’t leave a lot of good snow so instead went for a 3 mile run from my house.  It wasn’t too bad, but some of the sidewalks were solid sheets of ice. It was actually in the 30’s for this run, so I won’t complain.

Stretching and doing my physical therapy workouts have been helping me feel good. I’m excited and cautiously optimistic about the treatments and my running.  It is slowly creeping up on my Plantaverissary.

One Post: This might be a little late for this year, but Winter Running: Running at-21

She concluded that I do have Plantar Fasciitis (duh!) and we are going to take a more aggressive approach to get rid of it.  She wants me to keep doing the physical therapy exercises (I haven’t been to the therapist since October) and wants me to start going back again.  With a different focus.  I was hoping just to get the cortisone shot and get it over with, but that has some  negative side effects (atrophy in the fat pad on the heel).  Her next thought was to give me dexamethasone via iontophoresis for awhile and switch to using a boot. She seemed to think the boot was a little more aggressive than the Strassburg Sock.  All I know for sure is that the boot is harder to sleep with!  She also indicated that it was ok for me to start running again.

So I did… not much.  The appointment was on Thursday and I wasn’t able to go out until Saturday morning and I just did a little 1.8 mile run from the house.  It was really nice to be out there! I couldn’t find all of my stuff, but the 21 degrees made it ok!  Yes it still hurt, but the doctor said that not running obviously wasn’t helping so she didn’t see a problem with me running again.

Sunday I went for a snow shoe again! I walked along the Minnehaha Creek toward the Mississippi River.  It only ended up being 1.5 miles but it was fun.  The recent warm-up actually made the creek unsafe to walk on for much of the trip, but that was fine.  It was still fun.

One Post This week’s one post to remember is the 10 Basic Building Bloks of a Blog.

I ended up going snow shoeing by myself on Sunday afternoon.  I did 3.5 miles around Pike Island at Fort Snelling.  It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed walking on the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.  I saw a lot of deer and probably more people than I’ve ever seen at the park in the summer.  I know some people enjoy the flatness of the park for cross-country skiing.

My foot is feeling better, but is still sensitive to the touch in the Plantar Fasciitis area.  I have an appointment on the 14th so hopefully some good news will come.

One Post*

A few thoughts on my first run in the Twin Cities.

*One Post will be the best post from the past years during this week.

Two Elliptical workouts (5.4 miles), 2 swimming workouts (1,050 yards)  and 3 weights (machines at 50lbs)!

No snow shoveling, though I need to go out and break up some ice!!  The sun comes out and melts enough to make a messy situation in the morning.  Especially when the overnight temps get down into the negative double digits.

My foot had been feeling better, though the heel was still sensitive to direct pressure.  I thought things were looking up.  Sadly, I slammed my foot on the pool wall (I miss judged the distance while turning around) and it has been hurting again.  Part of me is ready to give up on it and start running again.  Now that it is a new year, I’m going to get into a sports doc and see what the “other options” are.  Amputation?  Cortisone? Botox? Slicing the PF?  Time will tell!

This was Saturday after we got back from the YWCA.

Here is a look at this week’s swim workout:

Week 2 – Workouts 3 and 4: Swim 10 x 50 yards, take 30 to 45 seconds of rest between each 50.

Previous Posts

Finishing up the Bestof Series…

2008 Race Experiences

2008 Most Read Articles

New Year’s posts from 2008 and 2009

Foto Friday with wedding sparklers