Plantar Fasciitis & Weekend run

As I've mentioned (and mentioned and mentioned), I have plantar fasciitis - and reading other blogs it sounds like many other runners do too.  I thought I had mine somewhat under control, so I kind of slacked off on treatment and it's flaired up again.  I think the nature of this injury is that it will reappear unless I vigilantly take care of it.  These are a few of the things I'm doing to (hopefully) get it under control:

Taping my foot.  Plantar Fasciitis is an injury to the arch of the foot.  Inflamation leads to little micro tears in the arch  (the pain is felt in the heel, but the damage is actually in the arch) and taping the foot gives the arch support so that these tears don't occur.

Here's how I tape my foot.  You need two types of tape - rigid strapping tape and multi-purpose cover tape.

First I take the white multi-purpose tape and wrap it around the side of the foot.  Wrap from just above the arch on the inside of the foot around to the same place on the other side.  This tape just provides protection from the more rigid tape you apply next:


View from inside of foot.

Here's what it looks like from the bottom of the foot:

Next, take the rigid tape and cut off 3 strips that will go from the inside of your foot to the other side across the arch, like this:

Start on the inside and pull under foot to the other side.



 Repeat this with two more pieces of tape so that the whole bottom of your foot is covered.  Like this:

Then you want to take a a final piece of the rigid tape to wrap along the top of these pieces around the foot to hold the whole thing together.

The end result should look something like this:

From the bottom



Arch side

 I literally keep the tape on all the time.  I find that it really helps to support my foot, and when my foot isn't warmed up yet it prevents those painful first steps that so often happen with PF.  I re-tape before each run.  Plus, it's super fashionable - see?  Here's me in Lake Tahoe this summer:

If you look closely, you can see my foot is taped...at the beach...


It's hard to be this sexy - don't be a hater.

Equipment.  I use these high tech tools to combat PF:

Frozen water bottle



golf ball (duh!)

I roll my foot on the frozen water bottle every night to reduce inflamation.  And I roll my foot on the golf ball every single morning before I get up.  My husband jokes that I'm getting my motor running while I sit on the side of my bed rolling my foot on a golf ball.  During the day the foot gets warmed up and loose, but as you sleep it tightens up - so the first step you take with PF is often painful because the arch of the foot is literally tearing.  Rolling on the golf ball helps to get the blood circulating in the foot and minimizes or eliminates the tearing.   The tape also helps to prevent this.

Run Flat.  Running hills apparently aggravates PF, so minimizing hill running is beneficial.  This is kind of hard for me, seeing how I basically live at the bottom of a hill and getting out of my neighborhood is a climb - but I try my best.  I'm also trading one road running session for a pool running session each week, so hopefully that will help.

Limit running.  This is probably a no brainer, but I'm hoping that if I'm very dilligent in the other things I mentioned above I won't have to limit running too much!

What about you?  Any other remedies for getting rid of Plantar Fasciitis? I'd love to hear any new suggestions!

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This weekend Michelle and I went out to the Springwater Trail with another friend, Robin, to do a 6 mile run.  It was perfect running weather - cool but NOT raining.  The trail is pretty, and it's nice and flat, so I thought it would be good for my foot to do our run out there. 



Really love super close ups at 7am!


The trail is pretty and we saw lots of bunnies and also lots of slugs (ick).  I posed at pretty little bridges like this...

I attempted to snap a picture of Michelle and Robin, but it's blurry because I am a crappy photographer....

Luckily for me, Michelle is better...

It was a good run.  My foot is feeling better now than it did last week, so I'm hopeful that the changes I have made in my training will help out.

Tomorrow I am pool running!  I haven't gone since July, and I'm sure the blue haired ladies at the pool have missed me...

Thanks for reading!