I woke up after our 15 mile run last week in horrible pain. I could feel every inch of the bottom of my left foot from my heel to my toes. Going down stairs was almost impossible. I hobbled around barefoot for a while (making it worse) thinking it would loosen up like my sore muscles typically do. Finally in tears, I pulled up the internet only to find I have Plantar Fasciitis which is defined as: a condition that occurs when the long fibrous plantar fascia ligament along the bottom of the foot develops tears in the tissue resulting in pain and inflammation. Yep, sounds about right. And you would not believe the things you can buy to fix the problem: special round shoes, splints, boots, socks, and shoe inserts, hmm where to begin?
So I texted my sister-in-law Cathy knowing she had this ailment a while back. Her response included approximately 15 exclamation points and sent me urgently to our local running store to buy a Strassburg sock (and to ice my feet with frozen water bottles). A Strassburg sock basically pulls the toes up thus stretching the ligaments in the bottom of your foot. I was not happy to discover you were supposed to sleep in this thing. Well thank goodness our running store was out of my size because the price tag on that sock was almost $50! I left with instructions to come back in 2-3 days when their next delivery was shipped.
In the meantime I called Katie to ask her advice (and to cry on her shoulder convinced my running days were over) and she told me to stop in for a special boot one of her kids had used for the same ailment. A half hour later I happily left her house filled with words of encouragement, advice about rest and frozen water bottles (same as Cathy), the boot, and her cure to this ailment: a $8.99 pair of Dr. Scholl’s foot inserts made specifically for plantar fasciitis.
Over the next 3 days I slept (more like tossed and turned) in that stiff boot, rolled frozen water bottles over the bottoms of my feet 4 times a day, and purchased the $8.99 foot inserts. On Friday August 5th I woke up with no pain and decided to try my tempo run. I only ran 5 miles instead of the recommended 8 miles but was elated to discover my foot pain was gone!
On Sunday there were 5 of us running 17 miles and I made sure they all knew that combined Katie and Cathy had saved my running career.
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