It's Hard for Me to Say This..."I Have Plantar Fasciitis!" (And no, it's not contagious!)

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. It's a few pieces of advice to people with desk jobs who think they are heroes just because they spend a little time working out after a long day in front of the computer.


Be careful!

Although I can't fully say that I regret my 10-mile run (see the post before this one), I must warn you that just because one or more parts of your body are conditioned to handle a more strenuous workout than usual, doesn't mean ALL of your body is ready for it.

Case in point: My run last week, although completely do-able for my muscles, took a very wicked toll on my feet (or foot, rather). I developed a condition that I believe is called plantar fasciitis, although I have not been to a doctor to confirm my suspicions. Basically, plantar fasciitis is a foot injury, where too much stress/wear is placed on the parts of your foot that support the arch. It is common in long-distance runners, couch potatoes-turned-weekend-warriors, people who spend a lot of time on their feet at work, people who don't spend enough time on their feet at work and then try to exercise, overweight individuals, and people with extremely high/extremely low arches in their feet.

Unfortunately, I fall under the "desk job/super-high-arch" category. I also tried running twice as far as any of my normal runs have taken me. This put me at risk.

My foot has been healing, to be sure, but it has prevented me from doing much good running since last Tuesday. I tried running about a 5K last Saturday with my wife, and I just about died from the pain (although I DID finish, which speaks both to my strong will and my stupidity).

Anyway, it's starting to heal up, and I'm able to do plyometric-type exercises where I stay off the back of my feet, leg lifts that don't put a lot of stress squarely on the feet, and the elliptical. Tomorrow, I might try to run again.

My advice to anyone who is planning on upping the intensity in their workout--particularly a workout that involves a lot of running:

1. Increase the intensity of your workouts gradually. I got really excited to take off on the longest run of my life, but what I didn't realize is that although my muscles were quite prepared for it from my "mix-it-up" routines I love to talk about, my bones, tendons, and ligaments were not prepared for the pounding of tens of thousands of steps.

2. Make SURE you stretch your legs and feet before a big run! This is especially important if you are normally sedentary throughout the day, like me. You need to warm up AND stretch well before running, so that your plantar fascia (look at my big terminology!) are loose and ready to support you throughout your run.

3. If your feet are hurting like never before, you should probably switch to walking. There is a difference between a dull ache and a feeling like you've got a switchblade in your shoe. If you feel sharp pains that are beyond the normal range, you are only going to set yourself back in the weeks to come while you take time off from your workouts to heal. My only exception would be in a race-type situation where you are planning on recovering for a few weeks anyway.

4. Where proper shoes! My shoes aren't amazing; I can feel every little pebble as I run. As soon as I get a few bucks I'll probably drop $100 or so for some decent ones. If you overpronate (usually people with flat feet) as you run, you'll probably have to spend even more for decent ones.

5. Try to run on a nice, level surface, or change up the angle on which you run. I was warned about this, but didn't put much stock in it before my big run. If you "follow the rules" of running, and stay on the left side of the road, facing traffic, during your entire run, you are putting more stress on the left side of your body because of the slant of the road. I did that, and now the left side of my left foot is injured, but my right foot is just fine. If there are stretches when no cars are around, be a daredevil and switch to the other side of the road.


Well, that's all folks.

Taking the Next Step (or 14,000) Towards Mixing It Up...

As I have mentioned prior to this post, one of the most enriching things as far as boosting my personal workouts goes is continually mixing things up. I don't like to get into too much of a routine--something that seems to go against everything most of us have ever learned about fitness.

Hold the phones! Let me clarify: I think routinely working out is a great thing; indeed, for our unfortunately obese nation, we have to constantly REMIND ourselves to work out each day. We have to meticulously track everything we eat. We have to SEEK OUT healthy foods like an octogenarian combing the beach with a metal detector. In other countries, healthy food tends to be cheaper, walking is the most common form of transportation, and if someone gets fat, it is a rather unusual sight to behold--at least, that was my experience last fall in Bulgaria with my wife; WE were the fatties over there.

At any rate, I think it is important to keep my body guessing, so that it can get the maximum possible gains with each workout.

With this thought in mind, I took the next step--or, as I mentioned, 14,000 steps--toward mixing things up: I went on a 10-mile jog around Utah County. Now, let's not kid ourselves here--there are plenty of people for whom 10 miles is hardly a challenge. I spoke with a worker at a running store where my wife (plug for my wife's blog HERE) bought some new running shoes. He routinely runs between 100-140 miles a week. (PAUSE to pick my jaw up off the floor. Again.) So 10 miles is nothing, right? Well, up until yesterday, I had only run around 5 miles at most, with most of my runs falling somewhere in the 3-4 mile range. But something convinced me that this was a good idea.

I have to mention here that a good portion of my thunder was stolen by the reality show The Biggest Loser, whose pleasantly plump contestants participated in a half marathon for the week's challenge. My 10-miler (and my pride) was severely weakened as I watched a crowd of obese men and women go 13.1 miles. But that's another story...

So, to get to the point--how was my run? Well, the first 5 miles--my normal run range--were quite a breeze, although I must say I did not pick the easiest 10-miler to run; you tend to exclude things like elevation gain when you're staring at a MapQuest-powered image, planning out your runs. There was a lot of uphill. I also didn't realize that many of the roads I chose were both shoulder-less, AND had little to no lighting, so much of the 10 miles was trail running.

At about mile 6, I started to feel a sharp pain in my feet. It wasn't so much the balls of my feet as it was the outside-bottom part. This pain continued for most of the rest of my run, but it wasn't enough to make me walk it out.

At around mile 8, my joints started feeling it. You know that place where your leg and hip join together? That socket, if you will...? It started hurting there quite a bit with each step, which was unfortunate, because running requires a good deal of STEPPING. Then my kneecaps started to ache, which was kind of random; it felt like I banged knees with someone in a ball game...

Okay, so I'm making this sound a little over-dramatic. The truth is, changing things up and going for a long-ish run was a wonderful experience. I ran on a road for 2.8 miles and only had one car pass me that whole stretch. The night was uncharacteristically pleasant for this early in the year. And there were moments in the poorly lit area I was running in where I just looked straight up at the sky and was mezmerized by the stars and the dark shadows of the mountians around me.

I will NEVER be a guy who routinely runs 100 miles a week. I said it already--I HATE routines when it comes to fitness. But I WILL regularly seek out a way to break my routine by ditiching the gym in favor of one of these long runs on deserted back-roads, with my cloyingly randomized selection of Ipod tunes to accompany me on my journey, and a half-empty--NO, half-FULL--water bottle sloshing in my hand.