Injury Prevention Strategy 1: PF

Wednesday 21^st January

Run #21

A couple of hard-won flat ks

It somehow got missed out of the preceding couple of posts that I am currently skirting round a bit of plantar fasciitis (PF). For those that don’t know the PF is the thick band that spans between your heel bone and under the knucksles of the ball of your foot and provides the ‘spring’ in your every step. It’s tough, fibrous and, when inflamed can produce a heel or arch pain that’s like stepping on lego in the dark.

I can pinpoint the exact moment, stood in the train on my Monday commute, when I shifted my weight over to my right foot and felt like I’d transferred my full centre of gravity over a particularly sharp stone. I couldn’t seem to shake it off and walking it off wasn’t really happening either. I kept my run super short on Monday but it seems some probably over-striding sprints in fairly minimal shoes was not the way to go.

A bit of Google self-diagnosis (ooooh, dangerous game!) threw up some useful gems:

-       PF can be brought on by a sudden increase in mileage, hill running or a switch to midfoot running (well, my daily run outs and an inability to avoid hills and instinctively switching to fore-foot for hill running could well be at play here)

-       Higher risk in those with tight calves (check) and/or fallen arches (check: flat hobbit feet all my life, minus the hair)

-       Pain during the push-off phase while running, not during initial contact and reproduced by walking on tip toes rather than heel striking (yup yup yup)

-       This and lots of other useful PF Info found here at competitor.com

So the best approach seemed to be: avoid hills where possible, stick to the support trainers and heel striking, keep mileage down and cadence up. Stretch the calves, foam roller (gah!) and roll a frozen golf ball under the sole of the foot to keep the PF mobile (seriously).

So this is what I’ll be doing for a bit.

Today’s couple of k was a testament to how hard it is to find a flat route of more than a few metres near me. A casual bystander could have been forgiven for thinking there’d been drinking so tight were some of the switchbacks. But if the heel pain goes away, I don’t care a jot.