Plantar Fasciitis (Left foot)

Two and a half years ago I was training for a half marathon when I woke up one morning and felt terrible pain in my left foot near my heel and arch. I remember the day before I had an interval run that I did on a treadmil at the base gym. I pushed hard and had the incline up which I did sometimes in order to make the workout more challanging than was prescribed. At the time I had signed up for a half-marathon training plan that was on the garmin app. I loved that program and it took me from running a 11 minute per mile pace to closer to 7 or 8 minutes per mile over the course of two years. Every tim I would complete the program I would start it over agian after I finished whatever half-marathon I had signed up for.

Part of the reason I believe I got plantar fasciitis is because I never did any mobility training. Mobility training is when you spend time working on your flexibility and mobility. Some people can not lift their arms above their head as an example. Not doing my pre and post stretches finally cought up with me at the age of 31. The second reason I got plantar fasciitis was becasue I was ramping up the amount of miles I was running to quickly. Its been a while but I went from being fairly sedentary to running about 20 miles a week in a matter of months. I am honestly supprised I was able to keep up for as long as I did without any issues. Eventually when I started to feel the pain it was humbling and took away the ability for me to run the way I wanted to for about a year.

The way I recovered from having unbearable pain every day was by wearing different types of shoes for differet activities. I noticed a drastic change in foot pain when I started a new job that required me to wear steel toe boots every day. I went from wearing my brooks ghosts for every activity to wearing my steel toe boots (which are wide and fairly flat but have thick soles) while Im at work 8-12 hrs a day. Then when I get home or walk home from work I switch to my brooks adrenelenes (I bought wides which feel better). I beleive this switching back and fourth between different style of shoes each day gives my feet the ability to flex and adapt to surfaces in new ways which helped my foot heal. I also do mobility work a couple times a week and make sure to do pre and post stretches before and after a workout or run. I still have some very minor pain in my foot but it never actually hurts or gets worse.

Hopefully this helpes someone and if you have any questions feel free to send me an email or leave a comment on this blog.