Plantar Fasciitis and Working My Way Back To Running

Apr 21

The song in my head at the moment is “Working My Way Back To You” by the Spinners. This is how I feel about running. “I'll be working my way back to you, babe, with a burning love inside.”

It’s been since late February that I have been for a run. I miss it dearly. I look forward to getting back out on a trail to run for 3, 4, 5 or 10 miles. I treasure the freedom that comes with a run. Listening to nature and smiling at others on the trail.

I adore time with my running tribe. Heart felt conversations happen over a run. Great ideas and clarity come to me. Running has been a gift in my adult life and wasn’t something I started until I had my second child. I definitely took it for granted and now I am doing all that I can to get back to it.

Last summer, I started to notice that when I first got up and out of bed, I would walk like a monster. My walk to the kitchen would be slow and my body was hunched over and I was limping. There was tightness in my claves and twinges of pain in my heels. I chalked it up to middle age, the need for a new mattress and new shoes. I did not pay it too much attention until late this winter when one day, the pain was too much to take. I got in to see a doctor quickly and he gave me several things to do.

Initially, I had 2 bones spurs and one was cracked. The cracked spur was the big source of pain. The first thing to do was wear a boot to allow that to heal. Wearing a boot lasted for 2 weeks. At the same time, I had physical therapy, dry needling and received massage therapy. All of these things were working well and then they came to an abrupt halt due to COVID-19. Once my appointments stopped, it was up to me to keep things going on my end as I want the healing and strengthening to continue.

Please know that in no way am I prescribing anything to anyone. My hope is just to share what I have learned and how things have helped me. My biggest piece of advice is that if you feel anything at all that is discomfort, please get checked out. I feel like I could have done a better job getting ahead of this but ignored the symptoms.

Here what I have been up to since late February.

Massage therapy with Megan at ACG Integrative Wellness. Megan has helped with muscle tightness and soreness before the pandemic shut us down. Since we haven’t been able to meet in person, we have had virtual sessions where she helps me with cupping and self-myofascial release. It has been amazing. I am very much looking forward to getting back on a massage table.

Physical therapy exercises:

Here are a few of the physical therapy exercises I could capture.

One would be heel raises and the other was lying on my back with knees up and allowing one knee to drop slowly to one side then lifting it up.

Another great exercise was picking up marbles with my toes off of the floor and putting them into a container. I loved that one. Thanks to Advanced Kinetics for getting me started. Looking forward to getting back on the table in the coming weeks. Dry needling has my name on it.

Other things that I have been doing have included:

**Frozen Water Bottle. I allow my foot to rest on top of a frozen water bottle 2-3 times a day for 15 minutes.**

**Night Splint. I got this night splint at my local pharmacy.**

**The ones in the link look similar to what I have been using. Toe Separators.**

**Cupping.** **https://lureessentials.com** **> Use SMFIT10 as a coupon code to get a discount.**

I hope these tips help. They are good to at least keep in our back pockets if we start to feel like plantar fasciitis is coming on. I hope to see my friends on the trails soon.

Have a great week and thanks for reading.

I am linking up with Coach Debbie , Running on Happy, Confessions of Mother Runner, Mile by Mile, Fauxrunner , Run with Pugs