Plantar Fascia Failure

The Plantar Fascia is the tendon that runs under your foot from the toes to the heel. This tendon can become strained if it is overused or stressed. A combination of the extra miles I've logged during my marathon training and my run-in with the hickory nut have left my planta fascia begging for a break.

I first felt a pain in the sole of my right foot after a 21 mile run on October 6th. Since then, I've run a grand total of three times and never more than 4 miles. Each time, I've felt varying degrees of pain. With only 16 days left until the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon, I do not have the luxury of letting my PF rest and heal properly.

With the clock ticking and my mind telling me that I need to get in another long run prior to race day, I decided to head over to see my buddy Kevin at the Rudy J. Ellis Sports Medicine Center yesterday. After a thorough examination of my foot (which is never pretty), he determined that  there are several factors at play in my injury. The factors that are out of my control involve the structure of my foot. I have very flat feet (no arch) and I overpronate (my foot naturally rolls to the inside when I walk or run). These are things that I have known for years and that is why I am adamant about replacing my running shoes every 300 miles. I need the arch support and stability that the shoe provides. The other factors that came into play were the increased stress on my arch due to the long runs and straining the tendon my stretching it as I landed my foot directly on that damn hickory nut (this just sound ridiculous).

So Kevin fixed me up with a tape job that will help support my arch and let is rest while the plantar fascia is healing. This tape job will also hopefully stabilize my arch enough that I can get through one more long run that I have planned for tomorrow. If I can make it through this run, I will rest for the next two weeks and only do some short, high intensity runs leading up to the race. Fingers are crossed!

Here's the tape job...if feet gross you out, you may want to skip down past the pictures. I'm sure I will catch some heat from my wife for putting these pictures on here for all the world to see, but I thought it might be useful for someone else that may be experiencing similar injuries.

 

 

The black tape is the magical (I'm not joking) KT Tape and the tan tape is called Leukotape P tape and it's really strong, non-stretch tape that is used here to support the arch itself. This stuff is also apparently super adhesive, so it has to be applied over the KT Tape because it would literally rip my skin off if it was applied directly to my foot!

 The light tan tape going over my heel and achillies is also KT Tape.

MONDAY'S WORKOUT:

Run

4.00 miles in 29:59 (7:29 min/mile pace)

After taking an entire week off from running, and a recipe of ice and elevation at night, I honestly felt zero pain in my foot when walking and assumed that it was healed. Reality kicked in about mile 2 of my run when I started to feel a dull pain in my arch. I immediately turned around and headed back.

Bike

30 minutes (9.5 miles)

Once I got back from my run, I hopped on the bike for a quick, easy ride before doing some stretching. 

Avg HR = 125 bpm

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT:

Bike

1 hour of hard work on the bike, covered around 22 miles.

Goal was to do a 5 minute warm-up, the stay in Zone 4 (143-155 bpm) for 40 minutes before a 5 minute cool-down. This was a tough workout, but one that I needed to do to keep my fitness up. I ended up spending 61% of my time in Zone 4 (66.7% was the goal). 

Elliptical

20 minutes on the elliptical and then about 20 minutes of weights to finish off the workout.