ZappoMan.com - Fitness Blog

Plantar Fasciitis - All the cool kids are getting it!

April 29th, 2007

I think I need to go back and write reports for Weeks 14-16; not necessarily because I think anyone wants to read them (other than Mom and Dad who seem to read everyone one of my blog posts) but because I don’t want to forget what I did and how I did it. Although I have been keeping track of all my training in my training log, I realize now that the “color commentary” of the blog post is somewhat more useful than just the raw stats… Why you ask? Well, for example, in the context of my newly self-diagnosed “early” case of plantar fasciitis, I believe that if I had a closer detail of my training over the last month, I may be able to learn from my mistakes and not repeat the activity that lead to this injury again.

The good news is that this week was a “recovery week” and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I had a big Y-Guides camp out this weekend, which meant not having time for long rides or runs, and as I’ve just mentioned my foot has been starting to feel a little funny so I wanted to take some down time from running and aggressive cycling hill climbs and the like. I think the rest has served me well, although I am not back 100% on my feet, in fact, I am certain now of my injury and I am sure that taking it easy on the running for a couple weeks will be a good idea.

Unfortunately I wasn’t doing a good job of keeping this “subjective” record of what I was doing and how I was feeling doing it, and now I’m left to my memory to piece together more detail about what might have caused what I believe is an early case of the dreaded plantar fasciitis.

My self diagnosis has been confirmed (supported?) by my fellow Y-Guide Dad, Dr. P. (igloo builder extraordinaire), who apparently worked his way through med school (to become an infectious disease doctor) as a technician at a podiatrist office. I described the sensation (I’m not calling it pain) in my feet and he ask a couple questions, poked at my feet a couple times and made the following observations:

• The sensations I was describing weren’t necessarily classic symptoms of plantar fasciitis, but that the areas of my feet I was complaining about are definitley the fibrous band plantar fascia that stretch from the toes to the heel
• In his opinion I have high arches and those are clearly susceptible to stretching and flattening, and that those actions in particular can inflame and irritate the plantar fascia.
• He observed that my plantar fascia seemed “particularly tight” and that that would certainly cause the sensation I described and more importantly that it would (if not dealt with) lead to a more serious cause of plantar fasciitis.
• He agreed that the fact that I didn’t have pain on lateral compression and the fact that I am familiar with the pain of a calcaneus stress fracture and that I didn’t believe that was what I had, that I shouldn’t be concerned about a stress fracture.

Upon retelling my history, which he and the other dad’s had heard before when they got to watch me hobble around in the boot and on crutches, he sternly reminded me that my orthotics “are not just for padding” and they are equally important for cycling as they are for running. Hmmm… the physical therapist hadn’t really made this point clear to me. But after listening to Dr. P’s free advice (he reminded me you get what you pay for) it makes sense that I need to wear my orthotics in my cycling shoes too.

Here’s why… the main job of the orthotics is to keep my arch from flattening which causes my foot to stretch and become deformed. There are all kinds of side effects of this flattening: the increased shock on my heal when running; the deformation of my outer toes which lead to my tailor bunion; and also apparently a stressing of the plantar fascia which can lead to all kinds of other problems most notably plantar fasciitis.

One more nail in my proverbial diagnostic coffin is my tight calf muscles. Damn it… wasn’t I supposed to be stretching for injury prevention!!!!

The good news: well, if there can ever be good news about injury, it usually takes the form of “you caught it early, so you can heal faster!”… hmmm…. let’s see. I don’t have many of the classic symptoms of plantar fasciitis, most noteably which is PAIN and lots off it.

I have scheduled an appointment with the PT that made my orthotics, but after doing a little more research, I suspect this visit will be a little perfunctory. And that the outcome will be a prescription of: rest, ice, stretching, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication (Ibuprofen).

I’ve been concerned about taking Ibuprofen because I had heard that there were some studies that showed that NSAIDs can lead to bone weakness. Dr. P was skeptical and said that his read of the studies showed correlation without causality. If all the people in the studies who had fractures and other bone related injuries were all athletes who often were in pain, and often took NSAIDs, then it may just be that athletes get injured and athletes take pain meds and anti-inflammatory meds, but they aren’t related other than athletes have/use both.

As I write this, it is more and more clear to me that stretching is my root problem… and that if I could go through my unwritten weekly training reports I would see that I’ve been skimping on stretching, and that I’ve been adding more time and intensity in both running and hard cycling efforts. These cycling efforts have been exacerbated by not wearing good orthotics while cycling, and rarely doing good stretches after cycling efforts.

Hopefully, I’ve caught this early after all, I still have 20 weeks before my Ironman, so I’ve got plenty of time to recover and ramp up again and still achieve my goals. Plus, by taking a few corrective steps now, I should still be able to have solid cycling training, and then focus the rest of my triathlon training on my swimming (I should do this anyway), and get back into the running more seriously once my feet have recovered.

Sounds like a plan right?

Entry Filed under: Fitness, Triathlon, Swimming, Ironman, Running, Cycling, Marathons, Strength Training, Flexibility, Stretching, Sports Injuries, Camping, igloo, exercise